


Spaceman

by wizord_of_oz



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Alternian Invasion, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Anxiety Disorder, Blood, Digital Art, Explicit Language, Language Barrier, M/M, Mentions of alcoholism, Violence, War, it's not that much of a barrier tbh but i'm tagging it regardless
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-01-17 12:43:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1388095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wizord_of_oz/pseuds/wizord_of_oz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This settles it. The universe has it out for Karkat Vantas. Locating the root of the cosmos’ wrath against him is going to be nigh impossible, when the following ***super important*** facts are taken into scrutinizing consideration: He doesn’t know jack-shit besides the fact that a) he’s Karkat Vantas and b) God himself has a personal vendetta against his sorry amnesic ass. Jack-shit includes (but is not limited to): why he keeps getting attacked by things that LOOK like trolls but ARE ABSOLUTELY NOT TROLLS--unless horn removal is the hot new trend for piss-pan Alternians; and why the voices of unknown acquaintances’ past keep regurgitating audible word vomit inside his think pan.</p><p>And to top off the neverending shitstorm express that will become his new life, he wakes up in a dumpster. To assume he’d wake up in any better a place is asinine on levels equivalent to scratching one’s bulge with a running chainsaw.</p><p>When he breaks into four kids’ apartment to escape imminent death, the last thing he’s expecting is help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. BE THE UNCONSCIOUS KID.

**======⇒ BE THE UNCONSCIOUS KID**.

 

The first thing you realize when you wake up is that it smells like some douchewad brutally murdered an animal, took a shit worthy of the gods on it, let it marinate for a few weeks, and then threw it directly in your face.

The second thing you realize is that you can’t see anything.

Moments later, you come to the groundbreaking conclusion that it’s because you’re lying face down in a pile of something that smells worse than a load gaper. You’re such a fucking imbecile sometimes.

To be fair, your thought process isn’t aided by the fact that you have a pounding sensation in your thinkpan and that your eyes feel like they’re crusted shut. The standard cholerbear’s hibernation would look like a fucking powernap compared to how long you feel like you’ve slept. The throbbing inside your head can best be compared to that of the world’s shittiest slam poetry beat, a beat so shitty that listeners’ hear ducts spontaneously combust. You’re feeling fan-fucking-tastic—if the definition of “fan-fucking-tastic” was being run over by a wheel device numerous times.

After following this train of self-pitying thought, you decide that getting up would probably be a good idea.

With a few curses muttered under your breath, you manage to peel apart your eyes and shift into a slightly less painful position lying on your back. A cursory glance around tells you that your snoozing destination of choice was a dark green dumpster. Well, that explains the smell.

What it didn’t explain was why the fuck you decided to sleep in a dumpster. Yeah, you can be a dumb nooksucker from time to time, but going comatose in people’s trash receptacles isn’t really your style. That sounded more like something that… um. Uh. Hold on a second.

You definitely know some asswad that _would_ sleep in a pile of garbage, you just can’t think of their name… All that comes to mind is— purple? And some god awful honking noise what the fuck. But that’s it. You can’t remember anything else beside that. Whatever, you guess, it’s not like you’d really want to know a fucktard that sleeps in this by choice.

Man, you really need to get out of this dumpster.

You’re bone-tired—it feels like some musclebeasts used you as a live punching bag. Physical activity more extensive than shuffling your lower appendages to walk sounds like hell. There’s the added bonus that you have no idea how stable your trash pile is and you’d rather not be buried alive in someone else’s junk.

You can feel the bitter chill of the middle finger God is giving you right now. Or maybe it’s just the abandoned mayonnaise your hand is resting in. Either way, escaping the dross coffer is going to be harder than you would like to admit.

The best option is, of course, humiliating. With a sigh of resignation felt from the depths of your soul, you twist your torso so your chest is parallel to the makeshift ground with your palms and knees holding you up. You indignantly start to crawl on all fours like a fucking barkbeast.

Hey, at least it gets the job done.

Well, it was getting the job done until your right hand slides on some sort of yellow fruit peel and launches the rest of your body in the garbage crevice that has made its home right next to the edge of your prison. You have all the bad luck. All of it.

Curses rip through the quiet air; wrigglers cry, cities burn. Regardless, nobody comes to help. Fucking assholes.

You hook your hands over the edge of the dumpster and yank yourself upwards, thrashing your legs around for good measure. You heave your torso out and over the threshold. The rest of your body decides to teeter right over it, effectively performing the world’s most painful and unintentional flip. Your face and the asphalt become more intimate than hardcore moirail pornography. Your eyes spin around a little in your head, and your main thoughts are somewhere along the lines of _shitdicking christ why is there so much red on the ground what is this a red grubsauce explosion at troll burger king oh wait no big deal it’s just your_ lifeblood _spilling out on the floor._

You aren’t quite sure why you’re filled with revulsion at the realization. You don’t think you’re the kind of person that gets queasy when some incompetent shitsack guts themself. You almost find that stuff kind of funny, in a sick, fucked up way. No, it’s something about the color that seems… off? Wow, okay, you must have some serious blood loss if you’re debating the color of your fucking blood. What other color is it supposed to be? Fecal green? Fuck that noise.

 As wonderful as lying on the floor and bleeding out is, you need to get up and check yourself to see how badly injured you are.

 

[ ](http://midoizuku.tumblr.com/image/140489634834)

 

After untangling your gangly legs and scooching on your ass to lean against a wall, you tentatively tap your cartilaginous nub and yeah shit your nose is broken ouch god damn it.

You cup one hand around your injured sniffer. In a practiced, instinctual motion, the other hand’s middle digit shoots up and extends itself toward the dross coffer. Fuck you, dumpster. Fuck. You.

You can almost hear the ghost of some batshit witch cackling over your struggles. You mentally extend the middle finger to her too.

Middle fingers for all. It’s like a wriggling day party, except the goody bags are full of middle fingers. What’s that, junior? You want cake? Are you in the mood for the flavor of middle finger? Because that’s all you’re getting. Welcome to the real world, jackass.

No, but seriously, who is this heinous invisible bitch and why is she cackling in your ear.

You’re pretty sure that hearing voices is not a good sign. That is, unless you _like_ being fucking crazy. In that case, you’re beyond help and the best course of action is to admit to yourself that you are not only crazy; you’re stupid, too.

What makes it even more confusing and frustrating is that there’s something so god damn _familiar_ about that laugh. You want to recite the most mushy, maudlin poetry to the owner of those screeching giggles.

 After serenading her, you would lovingly slam her head into a door.

Conflicting emotions aside, you really want to figure out who the cackler is. She’s important to you, that much is obvious. So why the _hell_ can’t you remember who the fuck she is. Aside from her laugh, all you’re getting is… kind of a teal color? Excessive drooling? Gross.

Sitting here isn’t going to help you figure out who she is, so you slide your back up the wall until you are, in the loosest sense of the word, standing. You broke your nose, not your legs. You have to stop whining like an incompetent wriggler and start moving. You’ve got to get your bearings. If you can figure out where you are and how you got here, you should be able to manage not getting culled.

The issue with this logic is that, after a solid 15 minutes of wandering through back alleys that only pan-dead bulgesmokers would willingly enter, nothing looks familiar at all. In fact, everything looks downright alien. Where are the lawnrings? The abandoned grubs, shrieking for help until some poor sack of shit has to take them out of their misery? Where the hell are the _people_?

Okay, this is really unsettling. You can feel a vague sense of panic pressing down on your shoulders, shittily gift-wrapped with a general sense of _what the fuck_.

You try to take out your cellular device and message someone, but you realize two super important things.

1\. It’s not there.

2\. If you do have friends, you sure as hell can’t remember who they are.

 Come to think of it.

You can’t really remember…

Anyone?

Yourself included?

 Almost immediately, you feel your meal tunnel close off. Air suddenly becomes more elusive than an Oscar for Troll Leonardo DiCaprio.

  _fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck._

 An awful dry wheezing sounds from somewhere. You wish it would stop—it’s making it hard to concentrate on forcing air into your goddamn lungs.

Your vision seems to jump in time with the too-fast beat of your pumpbiscuit. You hardly notice when your knees buckle under you and slam onto the ground, sending a shake through your body. You don’t stop shaking.

  _oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god._

 This is it. This is the fucking end. You’re going to die in some dark alley, covered in garbage and blood, all alone, and from a panic attack of all things. You’re the dead kid. It’s you.

This is the most moronic way to die, ever. Even drowning in shit sounds more appealing than this. Who wants to be known as the guy who died because his own fucking body refused to keep him alive?

You wish you could say you had a good life, but you can’t fucking remember it.

While you may not remember anything about yourself besides your name and some fundamental facets of the nature of your forgotten life, you do know this:

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS and you have no idea WHERE THE FUCK you are, WHY THE FUCK you are there, and WHO THE FUCK you are.

 

* * *

 

Although having an anxiety attack in a dark alley gives you almost as much pleasure as punching yourself in the autoerogenous shame globes, lying facedown in the middle of a damp, disease-ridden alley afterwards is just a little too suicidal for you.

You give yourself until the count of 10 to pick yourself up and go figure out what’s going on.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve… oops you went past it looks like you need to go up to the next multiple of 10.

 Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty one, twenty two—oh no, you messed up again. You guess you’ll get up at 30.

You keep making excuses to not get up, and reach an impressive 347 until some imbecilic incredible cactusfuck nudges your knee.

To your body’s protest, you pull your legs under you so you’re crouching. Almost instantly, you’ve spun around and are hissing in the poker’s face.

The man, face hidden under a hoodie, instantly backs away, holding his hands low with his palms facing you.

A bunch of muffled, unfamiliar sounds and soft noises from under the hoodie. The man punctuates the weird noises with waving his hands in what you assume is a nonaggressive motion, and pointing towards where you were laying mere seconds ago.

You understand what he’s trying to say: he was trying to make sure you weren’t dead. That was actually a pretty decent thing to do. You should thank him. Even if he probably won’t understand it, you might as well try.

“Although I’m sure you were intending to rob me blind, because that’s what assholes like you do, it was pretty not-shitty of you to make sure I was dead before doing so. So, thanks, I guess.”

You relax your shoulders and extend your hand for a businesslike handshake. You’re professional like that.

The man lowers his hood, revealing a gaunt face framed by curly black hair. The darkness of the alley tints everything blue, but even now he looks like an unusually pale shade of gray. He steps closer and starts to raise his hand. He bares his blunt teeth wait what the fuck _blunt teeth??_ You squint your eyes to get a better look at him.

He looks like he’s noticed something is wrong too. His bulging eyes are fixed to the yellow pointed claws on your hand. A tremor runs down his body, and he takes a tentative step backward. When he has established that you aren’t going to pounce on him, he shuffles further backward, then fully turns around and all out sprints around the corner.

“Hey! I wasn’t done giving you your conciliatory handshake for being a decent member of society! Get back here, asshole! What the hell do you have against handshakes?”

You run after him as fast as you can—you may be limping, but you can move if you have to. This asshole is your only shot at getting out of this shitty labyrinth.

“I know I look like total shit but you could at least have some goddamn manners! Maybe just cringe a bit? Morph into a vomit geyser? Maybe NOT FUCKING RUN AWAY.”

He shoots a glance over his shoulder when he hears your shouts, then picks up speed.

You turn the corner just in time to see a grimy formerly white sneaker disappear behind the wall to your left. NOT SO FAST, ASSHOLE.

As you chase the nimshit, you start to notice that the dark blue tint of the shadows in the alley is getting gradually lighter. Thank god, you’re almost out of here.

Right, left, left, left, straight ahead, right, whoa that’s really fucking bright.

This is an absolutely preposterous amount of light.

You stop in your tracks, and douchefuck gets a lucky 8r8k you mean lucky break. You squint and rub your eyes, careful to mind your sniffer.

Anxiety knots itself in your stomach. You instinctually know that _you should not be out in the open in broad daylight_. Images of the hordes of the living dead filing around the landscape, ready to tear into any dunderfuck dumb enough to go outside during the day, come to mind.

Apparently, you don’t have to just mentally visualize them because there are real dark shapes moving near you no no no.

You stumble backwards, tripping over your own feet but catching yourself on the wall of the building to your left. Your vision has cleared up enough that you can see it’s a dreary gray that matches your skin tone. Okay, at least you can see color now. You decide to try looking at the swarm of the undead that’s going to murder you now.

To your eternal surprise, they aren’t skeletons. They aren’t even lacking any flesh. In fact, they look like normal trolls.

Well, they would if their skin were gray and they had horns.

If there was any doubt that you were fucked before, it’s gone now.

Lucky you, none of them are attacking. People in varying shades of white to dark brown are strolling the streets. You see two white men arguing heatedly in an alley across the street from yours. A light brown lady carts a mini creature in a basket on wheels, a dark man beside her. A group of older-looking mini creatures play with a red ball, kicking it around in a circle.

It’s goddamn disgusting.

A few of them are starting to notice the outlier—you. A woman grabs another woman’s hand and directs her attention to you, whispering in her ear as her companion’s eyes widen. A man picks up the little female creature walking next to him and sprints away. Some men and women have stopped in the middle of the street, their eyes drilling into you. If you were to squint really hard, you bet you could almost see the surprise noodles and shout poles emitting from their heads.

Of course, before you can do that, you’re being shoved to the ground. 

As your back hits the ground, air becomes as elusive as Troll Leonardo DiCaprio’s Oscar _yet again_. How many times is this going to happen in one fucking day, really.

When your eyes focus again, you see your attacker is a little female with yellow hair. She’s holding your arms down and straddling your stomach—you’re pinned. Her eyebrows are furrowed and her teeth are bared. Her mouth starts moving in weird shapes. You’re sure she’s yelling something at you, but you can’t hear anything over the high-pitched buzz that started when your head hit the street. It’s not like you would be able to understand what she was shouting at you anyway.

Her left arm moves backward to lock by her side and curls into a tight fist with the thumb positioned underneath. It hurts like a bitch when she nails you in the face, knuckles driven into your right eye socket. You gurgle out an involuntary wet noise that breaks through the buzzing in your head. The right half of your vision goes dim. You can feel some spit running down your cheek.

The next punch lands on the region of your face containing the lower half of your nose and your upper row of teeth. Everything goes maroon. You see stars. There’s a fucking supernova on your face, white-hot agony centered in your nose and radiating pain outward. Something sharp is running down your cheek now, and you’re pretty sure it’s one of your teeth.

When you can make out shapes again, you get the pleasure of seeing Miss Shithive Maggots shaking her hand vigorously, blood pouring out of her knuckles. Hah, take that fucker. Sharp teeth for the win.

Obviously she’s not an expert fighter because she left your arms unpinned and her right arm resting on your chest in her pain. You need to act fast before her crotchstains-in-crime can join in on the beating.

You grab her arm and pull her closer to you, so her torso is on yours with her arm pinned between. Your arms are bent double, resting with their elbows pressed together so you can properly grip her arm. You bend your knees and rest your feet flat on the ground. She’s screaming even louder and trying to slap at your face with her left arm. You pull her so she’s more level with your face, then push with your right foot so you both roll to the left. When you complete the roll, you’re positioned between her legs, one of her arms in a death grip.

You immediately angle your claws and scratch at her face. A shriek erupts from her mouth as you rake red lines across her cheeks. After four separate rakings, she stops shrieking and she goes limp.

You spring up and scan your surroundings. The mini creatures have vanished. A thin semi circle of grown troll-lookalikes are surrounding you, trapping you against the gray building wall. There are about 15 of them. It looks like most of the creatures ran off when the confrontation started. Cowards.

The remaining organisms are frenzying, boring their red-hot glares into you and yelling nonsensical sounds. You need to get out of here. Right. Fucking. Now.

You pick the point of the horseshoe that looks the weakest—a short, stocky man and a tall, angular woman that look unsure of what they’re doing. You charge.

A hand with blunt nails grips itself onto the left sleeve of your black shirt as you sprint past them.

You don’t even think.You can’t afford to—it's life or death at this point. You’ve disconnected yourself from your emotions and witty banter. You are a cold shell of intellectual thought and instinctual battle technique.

Mid-stride, you angle your torso to face your attacker and blindly swing your claws. You hear the ripping of fabric and a wet plopping sound. Something flops to the ground. You continue to run.

You feel alive.

However, you _won’t_ feel alive soon if the mob chasing you catches you. A quick glance over the shoulder confirms that they are following you. Goddamn, these fuckers just don’t give up do they.

Running through the main streets is the worst possible thing to do. Even right now, you can hear the noises of the mob amplifying as more bloodthirsty idiots join the hunt. You need to go somewhere they can’t all follow. That means you have to pick a building to hide in. A building with multiple floors will be best; you can fight them one by one in a narrow hallway, not so much on a factory floor. It needs to be mostly abandoned, and close to other buildings so you can jump to a neighboring roof to escape.

Lucky for you, there are a lot of buildings to choose from. What’s with all these communal hive stems.

You pick the shittiest one and swerve a hard left. Thank god: there’s a side entry door. You yank the door open and duck inside. Dim lights illuminate the chipping off-white paint of the walls around you. A shambled staircase made of metal bars is directly in front of you. Everything is muted—however, the muffled sounds of the mob remind you that you’re not safe yet.

You hobble as quickly as possible up the stairs. You nearly fall down at least twice. On a planet populated by shitty stairs, these would be the sovereign ruler. When you get to the third floor landing, you hear a slamming door and feel the pounding of many feet in the walls.

You tell yourself it’s the constant gush of blood from your nose into your mouth that’s making it hard to breathe. It’s not fear of any sort, nope. Fear, what fear? Haha oh my god you’re so dead. 

You stumble into the fourth floor hallway and are careful to not prop yourself against any walls. If you smear your blood on the walls, they’ll find you immediately.

Instead, you stumble back and forth in the hall, testing doorknobs. One of them has to be open. You'd rather take your chances with one or two of the barfpuppets than a fucking mob of them.

Doorknob for Room 405: You’re not going to die. No, there’s no way. 

Doorknob for Room 407: Why do you have to die? What the hell did you do that was so awful you deserved to get fucking amnesia and fucking DIE on an alien fucking planet???

Doorknob for Room 409: You decide that’s you’ll give up saying _fuck_ forever if you get to live. That’s right. _Forever_.

Doorknob for Room 411: You’re going to die no matter what. Why the hell are you still doing this.

Doorknob for Room 413: Dying is an inevitable part of life. At least you went down fighting.

Yet by some miracle, the doorknob turns and you stumble into the room.

You slam the door behind you and lean your whole body weight into it. From here, you have a perfect view of the two black-haired heads and two yellow-haired heads that whip around to face you.

You also have a stunning view of a barely-functional TV displaying a full-screen blurry photo of your sorry mug with some bright red text slapped on top.

Shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wowowow this is a long first chapter
> 
> my homestuck-oriented tumblr is wizord-of-oz.tumblr.com
> 
> the title is based off of Spaceman by The Killers
> 
> thank you to my sister, harehollows.tumblr.com, for proofreading and helping brainstorm! she's also gonna make art for the fic when she can that should be cool
> 
> i have no idea how long each chapter will take-- i'm on break right now so i can probably make a new chapter by next week, but after that... no clue
> 
> P.S. Karkat clawed off that guy's dick ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) i'm declaring it canon in this fic
> 
> EDIT: to people leaving comments and kudos, THANK YOU!
> 
> EDIT 2XCOMBO: *breathes heavily* we have hte art. all blood in the picture(s) are 100% approved by me and can give you hints into karkat's tragic backstory how fun


	2. BREAK UP THE STREET FIGHT.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hours in the past, but not many...
> 
> in which dave wears a towel and shit gets real (for the kids)

**====== > BE THE KID BREAKING UP A STREET FIGHT **

 

In a practiced motion, you unclip your sledgehammer from your belt and hurriedly step between the man and woman facing off in the middle of the street.

You don’t know why they decided it was a good idea to punch each other repeatedly in broad daylight _in front of children for fuck’s sake_. However, your job is to break it up. So that’s what you’re going to do!

Just as the man starts to charge her, you turn left to face him and brace your feet. He runs straight into the palms of your hands. Making sure that your arms are fully extended, you press all your body weight down into your feet so he can’t move any further forward.

It’s not bad, for a 16-year-old that weighs 160 pounds at most against a guy that looks like he’s packing 250 pounds.

When he stops thrashing around so much, you step forward and shove him as hard as you can. He takes three clumsy steps backwards and falls on his ass.

You spare a quick glance at the woman--she seems calm enough. Time to talk some sense into these people!

“Did you guys really have to brawl it out in the middle of a busy street? This is stupid! Why the hell are you fighting?”

You rapidly turn your head from side to side, placing the blame equally on both of them.

The woman takes a step forward and shouts, “He hasn’t paid me back the money I let him borrow to get an apartment! It’s been 6 months! Obviously, he’s trying to cheat me!”

From his position on the ground, the man pleads with her, “I have _kids_. Getting a job is hard nowadays! You gotta give me another month, please, I’m begging you!”

Before the woman can snarl back a reply, you butt in.

“Guess what? I do not care! Work out your problems verbally, do not do it via street fight! Okay? Okay. Let’s just walk away, like mature responsible adults. We’re done here.”

You still hold your hammer at the ready as you stroll away. An enraged shriek sounds over your right shoulder, and you swing your weapon in a low arc as you turn around and strike your attacker’s right arm. An audible crunching noise accompanies the woman’s howls of pain. She staggers backward and runs toward a nearby alley to nurse her broken arm.

You heave a sigh and remove your cell phone from its pouch on your belt. You quickly type a text to the cops telling them about the fight and the woman’s injury. You don’t have to identify yourself in the message--the cops know your number by heart now.

Tensions between people have been really high for the past two years. You don’t blame them; having hundreds of thousands of people crammed into city limits doesn’t exactly make everyone best pals. Starting three years ago, the crime rate skyrocketed.

Not that you noticed…. It was insanely hard to pay attention to life in general following your da--. _His_ death.

Rose was the one that pointed it out to you.

It was so _obvious_ after she showed you the signs--not only did you feel like an idiot; you felt like an idiot abandoning his duty of watching over the city! It was at that point that you realized you needed to reconnect with life.

You got your sister to convince the police force to grant you a license to carry a weapon. Your friends got their siblings to get them licenses too!

Now you all act as kind of peacekeepers in the city! It’s just like that old book, The Hunger Games. People fight each other and do illegal things and you, the peacekeepers, beat the living daylights out of them to get them to stop. The difference is that you’re doing it for a good cause!

Your weapon of mass destruction (!!!) is a sledgehammer Jade rigged up for you. She specializes in guns, but you just couldn’t get the hang of shooting. You had the gun recoil straight into your cheekbone more times than you would like to remember. Lucky for you, Jade can fix up basically any weapon!

She reinforced the grip of the handle, so it wouldn’t slip out of your hand when you started to sweat. (Which is a lot. What? You keep hydrated.) To your protest, she made a hole through the handle and somehow got it through the metal head too. A steel cable now runs through both holes--it’s long enough to allow you a full range of motion, but you won’t lose your hammer in the midst of a fight. Drilled into the very bottom of the handle is a clip. When not in use, you attach it to a reinforced ring around your belt, which lets it dangle at your side. It’s not super comfortable, but it’s the best you can do. You wanted to call it “Zillyhoo” but then Rose told you that was weird and coming from Rose, that means a lot.

You try to avoid using Zilly-- fuck, the hammer unless absolutely necessary, but it works great as an intimidation factor. Unfortunately, some people are still too stupid to back away from an armed kid. Like that woman.

Speaking of which, what were you doing before you had to pulverize that woman’s arm?

Oh yeah, you were going to see your sister!

Your casual steps morph into a light, bouncy jog, and you head in the direction of the military base.

You can tell which building is the base instantly. Not because it’s permanently ingrained in your memory from countless visits. Not even because of the huge fence around it.

No, it’s because it’s noticeably less shitty than all the surrounding buildings within 3 blocks.

Your name is JOHN EGBERT, and you are going to visit your older sister, JANE, at her job as the BATTLE STRATEGIST PRODIGY in SEATTLE’S MILITARY BASE.

* * *

 

It seems like your entire life has been composed of visits to family members working in the base. Just yesterday, you were bringing cake in for Jane during her lunch break! You and Jane used to visit your fath-- _him_ before she was old enough to join. The base is like your second home.

As you jog up to the chain link fence topped with barbed wire, you ready your access badge. You push the red intercom button and wait.

A crackling female voice responds 4 seconds later.

“Identify yourself.”

“Hey, Wei, it’s me!”

There’s a brief pause.

“John? What the hell are you doing out? The city is on lockdown! And don’t call me Wei, I’ve already told you it’s Wendy!”

What. Why would the city be on lockdown.

“What are you talking about.”

“John, I’m serious! All civilians are supposed to be in their houses with locked doors and radios on! Apparently, some people called in and said they saw an Alternian!”

Holy. Shit. Wendy doesn’t mess around either. You’ve got to get home quickly!

“Is Jane going to come home?”

She sighs.

“Sorry, John. All on-duty military personnel have to stay on-duty until the threat is handled. She’d want to stay here, anyway.”

You turn to the camera fixed to the top of the fence and give her the most offended glare you can muster up.

“No, John, I didn’t mean it like--Just go! I’m sure they’ll take care of it quickly!”

There’s a crack of static and you know she’s gone. It’s time to scram.

Soon, you’re tearing down the street and into your apartment complex. Up the shitty stairs you go, two steps at a time. It took you _years_ to master this skill, and the phrase “i warned you about stairs bro!!!!” is no longer funny. You get to the fourth landing and yank the door to the hallway open. Five strides later, you’re in front of Apartment 413.

Much to your relief and dismay, the door is locked. You pound the shabby wood with your fists.

“Guys! Let me in!”

A practiced monotone voice with a subtle drawl comes from behind the door.

“I don’t know, bro. What if you’re an alien? How do we know you’re not going to turn us into an alien cheeseburger or something equally delicious by alien standards or whatever. Hold up, aliens probably don’t have cheeseburgers… What kind of food do you guys eat? What’s even the point of eating if you haven’t evolved enough to develop a fucking meat patty topped with dairy products, slapped between two buns. Why the fuck are you invading us. Go home and get your shit toget--”

“Stop fucking around, Dave! Just let me the hell in!”

“....Jesus dick dude keep those panties untwisted, Egbert.”

The door clicks open partially. A teenage boy, wearing a towel around his waist and another one on top of his head, pokes his head out into the hallway. Although a dark pair of sunglasses are covering his eyes, his raised eyebrows hint at his smug expression.

He pantomimes a tear drop running down his right cheek. You pantomime flipping him the bird.

Finally, he swings the door open all the way. You stomp past him into the crappy narrow hallway that leads to the four room apartment you and your friends call home.

As far as apartments go, it’s really unimpressive. The tiled hallway leads to the room that serves as your living room and kitchen. You try to keep the kitchen and dining area in the tiled upper half of the room, and the living room in the carpeted opposite half. Looking straight ahead, you see another blonde seated on the couch in front of the turned-off TV. She’s looking downwards, though… Probably reading.

“Hey, Rose! Did you hear the news?”

She snaps her (presumably trashy, hehe) book shut and looks back towards you.

“Hello, John. No, we had no idea. We just locked the door because we were terrified that you would try to come home. It seems as though our greatest fear has come true. Quickly, David, flee while he’s distracted! I’ll blow his neanderthal mind by doing basic multiplication.”

“Wow, Rose, really funny. Do you see all this laughing I’m doing?”

She smirks at you and you stick your tongue out at her and cross your eyes. You are the epitome of maturity.

You uncross your eyes and get down to business.

“Okay, let’s stop being dumbasses and actually assess the situation. I don’t know about you guys, but I would rather not die!”

As you look around the living room, you realize you’re missing someone.

“Where’s Jade?”

Dave gives you a shrug. Wow, very helpful, bro. Thankfully, Rose actually has an answer.

“She embarked outside about an hour ago. She didn’t share where she was headed. We have no idea where she--”

Rose gets cut off as the door slams open. A tanned girl wearing cargo shorts and a sweaty white tank top jogs into your living room. Her dark brown ponytail bounces behind her as she makes her way to the kitchen on the left side of the room. She throws a bag of nuts and bolts on the table. She also props the rifle hanging at her side on its edge. You all watch as she wipes her grease-stained hands on her shorts. Dave clears his throat. She looks up like she’s noticing you guys for the first time and smiles.

“Oh, hi, guys! I just went out scrap-yarding! What’s up?”

Rose busies herself with turning on your TV, and you glare at Dave for forgetting to lock the door. He faces his palms out at you and shrugs. Then you turn to Jade, who is now sorting metal scraps, and start to explain.

“The city’s on lockdown! There’s an Alternian on the loose! Everyone is supposed to be behind locked doors--speaking of which, can you go lock ours?”

She looks up at you for a second, and quickens her sorting pace.

“Of course, John! Just give me a second. Oh my gosh, this is awful! Where are Jake, Jane, Roxy, and Dirk at?”

“They all have to stay at the base until the threat is handled. I guess it makes sense. They have to defend the city and all the people in it! It just kind of stinks that they can’t come home until then.”

The sound of the TV comes on in the background. You look over. The TV screen has the city’s military emblem, a Great Blue Heron, displayed. A calm female voice begins announcing that Seattle has gone into lockdown. Soon the picture changes to feature bright red text and a blurred picture of something that looks... moderately human actually. The difference is in the gray skin and horns.

You jump over the back of the couch and slide next to Rose. Dave seats himself on the arm of the couch next to you. His towel headdress is gone, but he still hasn’t put on pants.

You’re about to comment that he should get dressed when you hear a bang and stumbling feet.

Everyone in the room whips their head around to look at the door.

There’s an alien in your apartment.

Shit.

After a second’s pause, all three of you are off the couch. You’re unclipping Zill--FUCK, your hammer from your belt, Rose is sliding her double daggers from her thigh holster, and Dave is grabbing his broken blade from next to the radiator.

Jade beat you guys to the door and is poking her rifle into the creature’s chest. It’s pressed up flat against the door, so there’s no way it’s getting out. The rest of you form a wall behind her so as to not accidentally jostle her arm when she’s shooting.

The thing isn’t even resisting. Its uninjured eye is wide, flitting across the four of you. Its chest is rising and falling in half second intervals. The face is caked in blood--from maroon to maraschino cherry red. It looks like most of the blood is from its own broken nose.

It looks _scared_. You didn’t even realize that was an emotion Alternians could have! The photos of them in military-issued textbooks depict them all looking vicious and bloodthirsty, not like…this.

It looks like a confused, defenseless kid that got the shit beaten out of them.

 As soon as you realize you are _pitying_ the thing, you dropkick that thought into the fucking garbage where it belongs. These are the things that killed millions of humans! This may have been the monster that _killed your dad_! For all you know, it probably killed your friends’ guardians, too!

As your duty to the city as a peacekeeper, it’s now your responsibility to kill the Alternian onsight, as military protocol calls for.

So… why exactly hasn’t Jade shot it yet?

Her finger is on the trigger. Safety is off. But her eyebrows are furrowed in uncertainty as she stares at the beast through the scope. Is she doubting orders?

Although you know you aren’t supposed to, you glance at Dave and Rose. They’re both in battle stance. Rose’s center of gravity is low, with her right leg and arm out front and left half ready to strike. If the situation was less dire, you would laugh at Dave holding his towel up with his right hand and his sword up with his left. Their faces are similar pictures of apprehension.

You’ve got to do something.

“Let’s tie it up.”

There are no questions--Rose starts gesturing for the Alternian to move forward, Jade keeps her barrel locked onto him, and Dave runs to go get the rope you keep in the closet (for interrogations, you swear!!!). The very first rule the military supplied you with when you started this whole peacekeeping thing is to _act as a team_. If you don’t, the enemy senses weakness and will tear your entire effort to shreds. For this reason, when you (the friendleader) make a decision, everyone follows through with it.

Hopefully, this decision won’t get your team killed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE ROPE IS FOR INTERROGATIONS, OKAY. JFC.
> 
> and jade, how could you forget the door!!!
> 
> same info as last time: my homestuck tumblr is wizord-of-oz.tumblr.com
> 
> thanks to my sister, harehollows.tumblr.com, for proofreading and helping me realize i suck at writing john
> 
> art will be added as my sister can make it
> 
> i have absolutely no clue how long each chapter will take to write; these first two came out really fast, though
> 
> thank you for reading! 
> 
> (please note: John's usage of the term "it" is due to the long rivalry and loathing between humanity the Alternians--humans in this fic try to dehumanize the Alternians in order to justify their actions towards them. If you intentionally and/or malevolently refer to another being as "it," you are pond scum. congratulations.)
> 
> EDIT: *wheezes* we hav more of hte art. 
> 
> (fun fact: the beautiful couch the kids have is based off of one that my family used to have...you know what, i should just make the whole story about the couch...who cares what happens to the others, the couch is what's important. bye guys im writing couch fanfiction instead of this.)
> 
> thanks for all the kudos and comments!


	3. WEAR THE ROPES. BE THE CAPTIVE.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which karkat and john bond in a closet

**====== > WEAR THE ROPES. BE THE CAPTIVE.**

You cannot be Karkat right now! He’s too busy bargaining the words “fuck” and “shit” off to his uncaring god in exchange for survival!

**======= > BE THE HUMAN FRIENDLEADER. **

You hear loud shouts and stomping through the flimsy walls of your apartment. You’re pretty sure you know why so many people are pissed off--it’s not like the Alternian gave _itself_ a black eye. (If it did then wow that’s just sad.) The mob’s yelling surges through the hallway outside your door, then moves in the direction of the stairs. The alien should be grateful that it’s safe. Well, for now at least.

It’s currently sitting in one of your kitchen chairs, covered in ropes. You propped your hostage’s chair against the wall where the TV used to reside. (The TV is living in the girl’s room for now. The TV must be protected at all costs!!)

The alien’s entire attitude and appearance changed as soon as it realized you weren’t going to murder it immediately. Frightened isn’t the first adjective that comes to mind--it’s kind of tentatively aggressive…. Like it _wants_ to beat the shit out of you, but knows it’ll get knifed in the troll equivalent of a kidney if it tries.

You check over the ropes binding it to the chair and yank a few times to make sure your captive can’t escape. You pay extreme attention to the knots that trap its hands behind its back--you can’t be too careful with those sharp claws!

While strangers may think the number of times you check over the ropes to be obsessive, your friends can almost certainly recognize it as panic. That panic is a result of having no fucking clue what you guys are going to do next. What do you even do with an alien??? Are you keeping this thing long term???

“We need to interrogate them.”

Rose’s voice breaks through your worries. Unfortunately, she also raises entirely new ones.

You leap up and face her. “Rose! We’ve got to be careful! It can probably understand everything we’re saying!”

“Actually, they most likely don’t. Military records--Seattle’s, at least--indicate that Alternians don’t take prisoners of war. Alternians haven’t given themselves the opportunity to actually learn any human languages.”

You look over at the hostage. Its unscathed eye follows you as you pace toward it. You lean in close to its face, putting on your most menacing expression.

“I’m going to hug you so hard and bake you a friendship cake.”

Despite the friendly message, the alien’s breathing picks up.

Huh. Maybe it _doesn’t_ understand what you’re saying.

And it does make sense to interrogate it. You need to figure out how it got into the city, how much it knows about humans, and any info about Alternian military that you can get. While you wish that you could get the base to handle the questioning, they think that dead Alternians are the best Alternians.

You straighten up and rotate on your left foot to acknowledge Rose. “I guess you’re right, Queen of Textbooks! Do you want to lead the questioning?”

Rose is obviously the best choice for interrogator. She’s sneaky. She can play both good cop AND bad cop. She’ll psycho-analyze the shit out of you before you even realize what’s happening! But most importantly: she speaks Alternian the most fluently of all of you guys.

In the early days of the Alternian Invasion, humanity was spread out over all the continents--not bunched up in cities. Back then, humans had the resources to keep prisoners of the war and observe them. They believed that the aliens could be reasoned with, or a bargain could be made. Humans just needed to learn Alternian, then a treaty could be made and Earth could be left alone.

Haha, what a joke.

Although humans started shooting Alternians upon sighting decades ago, military education still includes basic Alternian language in the curriculum. This is mostly because the military is too busy to actually sort through what can be taken out of the curriculum, but learning Alternian is there nonetheless.

To be honest, you and Dave treated it as a kind of joke class. What’s the point of learning the language of Alternians if you’re just going to shoot them? You guys know the basics, but it’s a slow translation process.

However, Rose and Jade both actually tried to learn. Jade has the occasional blunder when she speaks it, but is almost fluent. Rose’s weird brain sponged up all the verb tenses and vocabulary it could--you’re pretty sure she would be considered fluent by Alternians themselves.

Well--maybe to Alternians 30 years ago. The dialect has probably changed a bit since then.

You give yourself a second to laugh at the thought of Rose saying, “the bee’s knees” or “the cat’s pajamas” to the alien. But then you’re back to business!

“Give me a second to look over some of my notes,” Rose insists. “To say ‘it’s been a while’ would be more than a miniscule exaggeration.”

“Okay, cool. And Jade and Dave can keep--.”

It’s barely noticeable, but Rose is tilting her head and shooting glances at Dave. Is she trying to get you to look at him or something? You decide to indulge her.

You try to inconspicuously observe Dave. He has his usual cool-kid face plastered on, his shades completing the look. Hehe, what a dork, who wears sunglasses inside, seriously. But years of sharing an apartment has taught you a thing about Dave Strider and his body language. And after a second of staring at him, you know something is up.

His usual relaxed posture is looking a little rigid. You realize there has been a startling lack of lengthy metaphors since the alien showed up. If you wanna be really creepy and look closer, you can tell his nostrils are flaring rapidly, like he’s taking shallow breaths.

Dave Strider has gone into freak-out mode. Silent freak-out mode, but freak-out mode nonetheless.

Oh my god, you’re such an idiot! You know that Alternians aren’t exactly his favorite alien invaders, especially following his bro’s death--considering he was there for it! Ugh, you’re such a douche!

The only way to redeem yourself to non-douche status is by letting Dave go take a breather while still letting him maintain his cool kid status.

“Um. I mean, Jade and I will keep guard. Dave, you go put on pants.”

Dave bobs his head up in agreement, then heads for the room you boys share. Rose gives you a tight smile, then walks to the girls’ room. Jade has her back to you and is keeping watch. You can’t see her face when she apologizes.

“John, I am so so so so sorry I forgot to lock the door.”

You sigh. “No, Jade, honestly, no one blames you. It’s not like you were the only one who forgot to lock it. And let’s be real: if the alien was trying really hard to get in, the door wouldn’t have held up very well even if it was locked!”

She groans.

“But it’s not okay! We wouldn’t be in this awful mess if I had just remembered to lock the door! And now our Jake and Jane and Dirk and Roxy can’t come home until they manage to kill the alien which is impossible seeing as the alien is in our custody and we haven’t killed them yet! Killing them just feels so...wrong? Inhumane? And even if we decide to let the base come and get them, they’re going to question why we even hesitated to kill them! We’ll be put up for treason! Treason!” Her voice rises in volume until it reaches a shrill squeak.

Wow, okay, apparently everyone here is freaking out--even easygoing Jade.

You desperately try to quiet her down. “Jade, calm down! We can deal with that all later, but for now we’ve got to focus on the present! Just go with the plan, it will all work out, I promise!”

As soon as you say this, you get a sinking feeling in your stomach. You are not sure if this is a promise you can keep.

Jade’s voice is abnormally quiet when she replies.

“I hope that you’re right, John.”

* * *

 

 “ _Do you identify as male, female, or non-binary?_ ”

As soon as you finish picking apart the sentence and realize what she’s asking, you glare at her.

“Rose! Why are you wasting time on a stupid question like that!”

She blinks. Without breaking eye contact with the alien, she replies.

“Determining whether or not Alternians have a concept of gender will be a remarkable discovery in itself--I doubt past interrogations of Alternians addressed this. We only have their words for male and female because they used different words to describe humans with breasts and without breasts; technically, the words aren’t the concept of gender itself, just the cisgender appearance of it. It’s an important aspect of human identity; we don’t know if it carries over into other species’ cultures. But the primary reason is because I believe it would be more civil for all parties involved to respect each other’s pronouns. On the topic of pronouns, it is essential you stop referring to the alien as ‘it.’ It will be much messier attempting to get any information if you continue to treat them as a non-sentient lifeform.”

You make an offended noise and cross your arms. “So what if I call the alien ‘it?’ Literally everyone in the base does it, except for you and Jade! The thing can’t even understand me, what does it care?”

You can hear Rose gritting her teeth. “For the sake of civility and getting the alien to cooperate, John, I need you to listen to me. I will not have you actively degrading the Alternian while we attempt to extract information. Using the term ‘it’ shows me that you underestimate their abilities--that could get us all killed. So, I am going to ask for their pronouns. You are going to use them. End of discussion.”

Before you can respond, she’s back to interrogating. “ _Sorry for the interruption. Please state your gender identity._ ”

The alien gives her a look that can be universally translated as, “what the fuck.” There’s a moment of silence, but then they make a growling and clicking noise. Their voice is gruff, to your surprise--you thought it would be higher, based on their tall-and-lanky appearance. None of the noises they make stand out to you as a word you already know.

Rose appears puzzled for a second, but seems to quickly figure out whatever was confusing her. She gives an amused smile down at the creature.

“It takes a moment to translate due to a difference in dialect, but a direct translation of what they just said is, ‘why in the everloving fuck would you ever want to know.’”

You take a moment to exchange bewildered looks with Jade and Dave. (Well, Jade mostly. Dave is as inexpressive as ever.) Wow, who knew you had a alien with an attitude on your hands!

“ _I want this to be a civil questioning. So, state your gender identity._ ”

“ _Male. Why is an insufferable asscactus like you worried about pronouns? Just get on to brutally murdering me already._ ”

Rose looks over at you after translating. You nod. Yeah, yeah, you get it. Use he/him pronouns, yay.

“ _What’s your name?_ ”

He rolls his eyes… well, eye. You may not understand everything he’s saying, but you can feel the sarcasm radiating off his response.

“ _Wow, we’re getting on a first name basis now? Don’t you feel like we’re moving too fast? Take me on a candlelit hatedate first._ ”

Rose chuckles. Uh oh. Rose has dealt with a lot of shit today, and it looks like she’s not accepting any more. Crabby just landed himself a Lalonde-style smackdown.

She lowers her gaze from his face and inspects the blade of the dagger in her left hand. “ _May I remind you that your life currently relies on you answering our questions--failure to do so will not end well for you._ ” Her body language may say bored, but her voice says murder.

In a flash, the dagger is out of her hand and imbedded in the wall just a touch up and to the left of the guy’s head. He looks a little ruffled, but otherwise as snarky as ever.

“ _Fine, fine, firmly grasp your rumble spheres and calm them._ ” He pauses a second. “ _I’m known as the Thresh Prince._ ”

Rose narrows her eyes. The knife in her right hand switches over to her left.

“ _God damn it, okay, it’s Karkat!_ ”

Oh, Rose. Always ready to tear through people’s walls of lies!

Karkat makes a point of staring straight ahead as she saunters over to the wall behind him. With a grunt, she yanks her dagger out in one swift movement. She takes a few moments to inspect the hole in the wall. Um. Hello, Rose. We have more important matters to attend to than properly caring for our apartment.

Before you can tell her to get back on task, she speaks.

“ _Now that formalities are out of the way, it’s time for the real questions. Explain how you managed to get into the city._ ”

Karkat’s face goes blank for a second, like he’s trying to recall something. The expression is gone almost as quickly.

“ _I boarded the galactic ‘eat shit’ express and hopped off at the ‘none of your fucking business’ stop._ ”

Karkat is really testing Rose’s patience. Didn’t having a knife flung in his face shake him at all? Man, Alternians sure are weird!

When he sees your group’s expressions, he gives what he thinks is a better answer. “ _Okay, I’ll tell you. Honestly, I’m not quite sure? I woke up in a dross coffer…._ ” (Rose informs you that dross coffer means garbage can in Alternian. That is by far the dumbest nickname for a household object you’ve heard of.)

The alien boy sits up straight like he just had an idea. “ _I can direct you to it, where you can then promptly throw yourself in and become one with your kind!_ ” There’s an awkward moment of silence. “ _Because you are garbage. Your kind is trash. Trash that can throw a quality punch, but trash nonetheless._ ”

Wow, does Karkat really think that’s going to pass as an acceptable story? He better get ready for another smackdown.

You’re surprised to see not Jade or Rose step forward, but Dave. He raises his broken blade tip and presses it lightly against the center of Karkat’s chest. With shaky pronunciation, he says one of the few phrases you boys actually bothered to learn: “ _Shut the fuck up._ ” There’s not an ounce of humor in the sentence. It probably took him a lot of time to work up the nerve to even say anything in Alternian--since Bro’s death, he had sworn off the entire language.

With his sword tip still thrusted against Karkat’s chest, Dave switches back to English. “Yo. Rose. Tell Karkat that if stupid shit keeps fountaining out of his mouth like that, I’m going to have to spill some more of his weirdass mutant blood and it’s going to look like a terrible Koolaid factory explosion with a death toll of three. ” Rose gives him a ‘really’ look and starts translating (without the Koolaid reference, but otherwise it’s the same message).

Karkat starts to make a weird face when Rose drops the word “mutant” on him. It’s the kind of face that kids make when their parents make bad sex jokes. It’s the face you make on your birthday when Jane tries to feed you four cakes in one day because jesus christ how can anyone like cake that much. It’s the expression that Dave made at you when you sang along to “How Do I Live” in that really good and really old movie, Con Air.

The face he’s making is disgust.

He waits for Rose to finish Dave’s threat, and then butts in. “ _Whoa whoa whoa, I know we’re upset here, but let’s not go throwing words like ‘mutant’ around for no discernible reason. That’s not even a creative insult--step up your fucking game._ ”

You exchange confused looks with your friends. You guys know about the hemospectrum--the fact that Alternians had different blood colors became pretty obvious really early on in the war when humans bombed their land troops and the trolls exploded in different colors. Prisoners of war told you a little more about the whole thing when you asked who their commanders were; trolls with teal to fuschia blood order the warm blood colors fighting on land from the safety of their spaceships. The lower end of the hemospectrum starts with maroon and the highest end is fuschia, yadda yadda whatever. But your textbooks never told you guys about trolls with bright red blood. It’s pretty obvious that Karkat here is off the hemospectrum. And from what you’ve learned about Alternians, they don’t exactly care for non-conformers.

Why doesn’t this guy seem to know he’s a pariah to his species?

Rose raises an eyebrow. “ _I’m sure you’re familiar with the hemospectrum._ ”

He snorts. The clicking sounds leaving his mouth sound irritated. “ _What the fuck are you talking about. Are you making up words to spite me now? Was tying me up not enough for your sadistic shitlicking asses? Just let the sword-wielding dipshit off me already, I’ve come to terms with my cruel fate._ ”

Rose finishes translating for you and the room goes into contemplative silence. Either this guy is a really good actor, he’s gone batshit, or he has amnesia. Amnesia would explain why he can’t remember how he made it into the city (that is, if you choose to believe that answer). But is amnesia even a thing trolls can get? Is there even a word for it in Alternian? Is it worth keeping him alive if he really does have it, or should you still try to get information from him? You’ve gotten this far already. Getting rid of a body won’t be easy either. Can you even treat amnesia in trolls? Ugh, why the hell do Alternians have to make life hard for everyone?!?!

A beeping noise sounds from the kitchen table, making everyone jump. “Sorry, sorry! I forgot to put it on silent! It’s probably Jake, I need to answer this! Sorry guys, give me a minute!” Jade apologizes. She hops over the couch and snatches her phone. Dave finally relocates his sword tip to the floor. Rose seems frustrated--this questioning isn’t really going as planned. You wish you’d risked being accused of treason for a troll that could actually give you info!

“Um. Guys?” Jade is still looking at the screen of her phone. “Jake says he’s out on the street with his patrol right now, and they’re passing by our apartment complex right now. He’s coming up to check on us in three minutes.”

As much as you would like to tell Jake about your captive, he’s not great at keeping secrets. He’s also had extensive training that tells him to shoot Alternians on sight, no matter what the circumstances are--if he saw Karkat right now, there would be no stopping him. That means you have to find a spot to hide Karkat in under three minutes. And Jake has a hunting instinct--it’s what makes him so great at his job in the land troop division. He could probably pick up on the fact that there’s an alien in your apartment pretty quickly if there are enough visual clues. You’ve got to find a REALLY GOOD hiding spot for Karkat in under three minutes.

Haha you’re all fucked.

Rose seems to have followed the same train of thought, because she immediately says, “Put him in the utility closet. We can hide him behind the vacuum and mops. The disinfectant in there should cover his smell for now. You and Dave need to go hide him in there and Jade and I can clean the area up and move the TV back in here.”

You can’t untie Karkat from the chair and rebind him in under three minutes, so you guess you’ll have to leave him like this, chair and all, in the closet. Hopefully Rose can think of an alibi for the missing chair quickly. Dave drops his sword on the floor with a thud. He bends at the knees and hooks his hands under the chair seat. You mirror the movement and with a heave, Karkat is being carried over to the utility closet near the front of the living room. He tries to move his legs and kick you and Dave in the head--oh right, you didn’t really explain what’s going on… You’ll do that in a second.

Dave edges into the closet and clears a path with his foot. As quietly as possible, you place Karkat in the back left corner of the closet. Karkat is not helping with the quietness thing. A steady string of shrieks and hisses are erupting from his bared teeth. He’s shouting something at you in Alternian--Rose isn’t here to help you translate, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out he’s probably dropping an abundance of ‘fucks’ and ‘shits’ at you. You need to get him to shut up, and he doesn’t take your warnings seriously.

You unceremoniously grab a stained rag on the floor and wrap around his head and over his mouth, effectively creating the world’s most disgusting gag. You cross your fingers that the chemicals on this thing aren’t toxic. You guess it’s a _little_ quieter now. Karkat is still yelling, but it’s muffled. Bleh. You’ll have to say something to him before you close the closet. Dave is standing awkwardly behind you, looking like he wants to help. You wave him away and tell him to go help clean up the living room. He shrugs and grabs a bottle of sanitizer as he exits the closet.

You back up and start throwing rags over Karkat so his freakishly nubby horns and gray face aren’t showing. Once you’ve decided you’ve done a sufficient job, you pick up some mops and arrange them around the chair, teepee style. Now you just need the vacuum cleaner to top it off. When Karkat sees you pick up the vacuum, he starts thrashing and shouting even more. Ugh. You bet he thinks you’re going to smash his head in with it or something. It looks like you’ve got to shut him up now.

“ _Karkat! If you want to live, then I need you to shut up right now!_ ” NOW Karkat is quiet. His pupils dilate as he takes in what you just said. He’s still breathing pretty heavily, but at least he’s not flailing around. You take his silence as a chance to think out your next words and position the vacuum. You’re grateful and kind of surprised that he continues to not make any noises. He’s probably just shocked by your implication that you’ll help him survive.

You finish thinking out the weird syllables and clicks you’ll have to make, then continue to explain. “ _We are trying to hide you! Be quiet until I come back in here, okay! If you make ANY sort of noise before then, you will die. As bad as us kids are, we are better than the…._ ”--You struggle to remember the right word-- “ _...the, uh, government. So shut up._ ”

And with those cheery words, you step out of the closet and close the door.

If you thought your head hurt before, it now feels like someone drove an axe through it. You lower your head and press on your temples. What the hell did you just say? You basically just promised the alien you were going to help him! As if! And what was that about “the government is bad and my friends and I are good?” What the hell is wrong with you! You’re manipulating him for info! Why are you trying to make yourself look like a good guy to Karkat? Who cares what he thinks of you! Is it because he looks like you and your friends? Is it because he talks like a bratty teenager? His expressions and emotions? Why does he have to be so goddamn _human_?

“Yo. Egbert. Earth to nerd. Cleaning supplies, incoming. Lift off in 3, 2, 1…”

You look up just in time to see Dave chuck a bucket and some disinfectant soap at your face.

You easily catch the bucket, but the soap bounces off your left shoulder and onto the ground. God damn it.

As you bend to pick it up, a loud banging shakes the front door. crap crap crap.

You crack open the closet door and toss the bucket and soap bottle in. You hear a muffled thud and a yelp. Whatever, Karkat can handle a few flying cleaning supplies.

You shove the door closed and lean casually against it as Jade’s sweaty brother enters the room.

 

Karkat better be really good at hide and seek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY 4-13!
> 
> haha wow i really waited last minute to post this on 4-13 didn't i
> 
> my homestuck tumblr: wizord-of-of.tumblr.com
> 
> proofreader and artist: harehollows.tumblr.com
> 
> i'm going to be honest here, this chapter was kind of rushed... so i'll probably go back and edit some grammar and stuff when i can. i wanted to get more stuff in this chapter, but i'm sensing a theme of me posting about 3,000 words at a time.
> 
> art when my sister can make it, yadda yadda yadda.
> 
> well, happy 4-13 again!
> 
> EDIT: i'm sorry but i'm gonna have to have yet ANOTHER chapter be from john's pov; i can't get across key info from karkat's pov right now, and each chapter is covering a lot less stuff than i thought it would. bleh why do humans have to know everything geez it makes life so hard
> 
> EDIT 2XCOMBO: we hav evun mor of hte art. hooray. i also kind of just awkwardly replied to some of the comments 2 weeks late, i kept wanting to reply but time is a thing i don't have much of anymore :( thank you for reading, commenting, and leaving kudos!
> 
> EDIT 3XCOMBO: sister asked me to take down the art for this chapter but she'll redo it when she can


	4. PARTICIPATE IN SEATTLE’S MOST INTENSE GAME OF HIDE AND SEEK TO DATE.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which karkat shows off his sweet dance moves

**====== > PARTICIPATE IN SEATTLE’S MOST INTENSE GAME OF HIDE AND SEEK TO DATE.**

You ignore the ripe smell of sweat that greets the apartment as Jade opens the door to let her brother inside. It’s Jake English’s natural fragrance of choice--a room without the presence of B.O. is a room he’s not in. It kind of adds to the manliness persona that he tries to give off. Key word being “tries.”

When you face the facts, Jake doesn’t look manly. He’s shrimpy; the muscles he’s built from years of military service look unnatural with his thin frame. Despite a three year age gap, Jade is about an inch taller than him. You sometimes wonder if Jade hoarded all the athletic genes in the Harley-English family--when you stand Jake and Jade next to each other, the only physical similarities between them are their tanned skin, green eyes, and black hair.

Jake makes up for his shrimpiness by living each day like he’s in an action movie. In any other case, you would say there’s no way in hell that could work--however, Jake manages to pull it off. Random barrel rolls and guns thrown everywhere are things you’re pretty comfortable with at this point. And apparently, action movie cliches are just what Seattle’s land troop division needed when Jake joined them. He moved quickly up the ranks, and is considered the prodigy of the land troops. He’s basically what Jane is to the Battle Strategy division, what Dirk is to Weapons Development, and what Roxy is to the Air Force. That is, very valuable.

You raise an eyebrow as you watch the land troop hero burst past Jade, double pistols raised and eyes scanning rapidly over the room. His head jerks from left to right no fewer than four times, and THEN he chooses to lower his guns and put them away. He can’t do that normally either--the pistols revolve around his pointer finger a couple times and then he shoves them into the gun holster strapped around his upper thigh.

He places his hands on his hips and thrusts his chest out proudly. “Sorry, fellows! Didn’t mean to scare the daylights out of you! I just want to wear belts and braces, though--we can’t be too careful right now!”

Any other day, you would be really happy Jake was here and you would pick through your old timey dictionary to decipher what he’s saying and do fisticuffs and have a good time or whatever. But right now, you’re too frustrated and confused and nervous to put up with him and his overwhelming lightheartedness. You grumble a hello to him and stomp back into the entry hallway to lock the door.

From behind you, you hear Jake (loudly) whisper, “Who put bees in his bonnet?”

Jade snickers and answers, “It hasn’t been a great day for him--then again, it hasn’t been a good day for anyone! He’s mostly angry that Jane and you guys don’t get to come home until you capture the Alternian. Oh, yeah, how did you manage to get the base to let you out on the streets? I thought they would only let the older troops out!”

Jake flashes a proud smile. “They told me to lead a group anyways. I guess they think I know my onions when it comes to fieldwork. It makes me nervous that I’m holding the baby on something as huge as this!” He runs a hand through his hair and laughs nervously. “But if I do come face to face with that alien scum, it better be ready for me to clobber the everfriggin tar out of it.”

You have to mentally tell yourself to smile and laugh a little. Hopefully it doesn’t look too strained. Acting like nothing is weird will be key to hiding Karkat. That, and Karkat staying quiet. He’s actually doing a pretty good job with that right now.

The others did well with cleaning the apartment too, thank god. The TV is back in the right spot, the residual blood Karkat got on the door was scrubbed, and the room is just the right amount of messy. It looks as filthy as it would any other day. If you didn’t know what was hiding in the closet, you could almost convince yourself that an Alternian never broke into the city at all! An Alternian? In Seattle? That’s hilarious! There could never be a troll here!

You quickly realize how stupid that train of thought was. But at least you feel a little more secure that Jake won’t find him. He looks a little too invested in telling you about the patrol to notice anything anyways.

The group slowly shuffles over to the couch, and everyone sits down except for Jake. You flop down and rest your head on the left arm of the couch. You stretch your legs so they run over Dave’s legs and your feet are resting in Jade’s lap. Dave gives you an eyebrow but otherwise doesn’t care. Jade giggles a bit and pretends to karate chop them, but then settles down to listen to Jake.

Her brother is standing in front of the couch, gesticulating wildly and talking rapidly; you’re not paying attention to what he’s saying, but it’s probably not important. Wiggling your feet around and prodding Dave and Jade with your toes actually takes up a lot of your concentration for the next five minutes. They ignore you--they’re fully invested in Jake’s tale. You tune in towards the end of his story.

“....Other than that small explosion on Pike Street, the patrol has been fine and dandy. I figured that it wouldn’t cause a hullabaloo if I made sure you kids were okay. I didn’t get the nod to come check in on you all, so this visit has to stay pretty hush hush. Roxy, Dirk, and Jane all know I’m here, though.” He scans the kids on the couch in front of him. “So… No one is hurt?”

Rose smirks from her spot to the right of Jade. “Any notable injuries in this room are psychological and inflicted long before this incident. So, no. We’re all fine.”

Jake raises a hand and mimics wiping sweat off his forehead, letting out a “phew.” He brushes off his forest green military jacket and hooks his thumbs in the pockets of his cargo shorts (which, now that you think of it, look almost identical to the ones Jade is wearing--maybe just a little longer than hers). “In that case, I should probably be off. My troops are probably wondering what in the devil fucking dickens is taking me so long to check this building.” He lowers his gaze and regards the floor, rubbing his foot on the carpet for a couple of seconds. Without looking up, he says, “Can I ask you lot a question?”

A chorus of “hmm's” come from the couch. He jerks his head and gives you all an inquisitive stare. “Why is there blood on the carpet?”

What.

A panicked glance down confirms that, yes, there is blood on the carpet. It’s only a few drops here and there, but it’s enough for Jake to notice. It must of dripped off of Karkat’s face while you tied him up and lugged him to the closet.

You now have less than 2 seconds to think of a way to save all of your asses.

Okay, think think think think think think think think think think think _ouch_.

You feel a slicey sensation on the bottom of your left foot. You try your best to not make a pained expression, because there’s probably a reason someone is carving up your foot. Your eyes flit down and barely notice Rose sliding a dagger back into her thigh holster. Jake is too busy squatting and rubbing at the red spots on the carpet to have seen anything.

You make a mental note to give shit to Rose later for cutting up your poor foot without explanation! You’re probably bleeding! Now someone will have to run and get bandaids to stop the bleeding and---oh. OH.

You lift your left leg and shove the bloody sole in Jake’s face. In what you hope is an apologetic voice, you say, “Sorry, man, I totally forgot, but the blood is my fault. Dave left his sword laying on the floor like a dumbass and I stepped on it right before you showed up.”

English squints at the cut. After a thorough inspection, he lightly pushes your foot away and stands up straight. “You know, you really ought to be careful with your weapon,” he remarks, addressing Dave. “If you just throw your blade wherever you please, it’s in the cards that someone will get seriously hurt.” Jake fiddles with the leather straps holding his goggles to his head (he wears them instead of glasses when on duty--Jade helped him make them back when he enlisted), then starts walking in the direction of the door. This is the cue for the rest of you to stand up and see him off.

Dave is muttering something under his breath as you slowly make your way over to Jake. You only pick up snatches of what he’s saying. “...who the fuck does he think he is… you walk in his room there are fucking guns everywhere… getting a little cut is better than being pumped full of fucking lead...well unless you _want_ to function as a pencil….”

By the time you and Dave make it to the door, Jade is giving a goodbye hug to Jake and Rose is standing a respectful distance away, ready to open the door. Jade and Jake sway from side to side a few times, still hugging tightly. Jade then pulls back so she’s an arm’s length away. “Stay safe, okay?” She pleads. Her face portrays the perfect amount of concern for a sister sending their brother out to fight a mass-murdering alien.

She’s doing such a convincing job of acting like the Alternian is still on the loose, you’re almost tempted to tap her on the shoulder and give her a little reminder of your situation.

Jake’s expression softens. “Of course I will, sis.”

With that, Jade releases him. She playfully swats his arm. “Go kick some alien butt, then!”

Jake grins and does his cheesy signature move--he mimics pistols with his fingers and fucking _winks_. Everyone in the room groans in unison. He shrugs, then pulls out his real pistols. With a shout of “YOLO!” (....?) he’s jogging out the door. Halfway through the doorframe, he stops as if he remembered something.

[ ](http://hellsalemlot.tumblr.com/image/104649873609)

He sticks his head back inside the apartment. “Oh, yes, and guys, please remember: Don’t take any wooden nickels.” He gives a mock salute, and THEN he’s actually gone.

Rose shuts and locks the door. Everyone looks at Jade.

She rolls her eyes. “‘YOLO’ means ‘you only live once.’ The wooden nickels thing means ‘don’t do anything stupid.’”

You, Rose, and Dave all “ahhh” at the same time. No one can ever fully understand Jake’s old timey language except for Jade. “YOLO” is a new one.

A grin slowly spreads across your face. You’re feeling ecstatic right now--you totally just fooled Jake! You won’t be accused of treason. Well, not today... but that’s not the point! Hiding this Alternian no longer feels like such a difficult task; if you can hide him from Jake, you can hide him from almost anyone. Thanks to Rose’s quick thinking, you guys are off the hook for a little longer!

You make eye contact with Rose. You wiggle your eyebrows, and she laughs a bit. You ball up your fist and start pointing at it. “Rose. Rose. You know what happens to people that have good ideas that save other people’s asses. Rose. Come here.”

She laughs harder and starts backing away. You pursue her. It turns into a full fledged chase around the apartment, with Jade trying to hold you back and Dave trying to catch Rose for you.

Her downfall is when she ducks under Dave’s arm and ends up flipping over the back of couch. She ends up sprawled halfway on the floor. When she sees you approaching she lifts her left hand up, waving it around in a parody of a white flag. The back of her right hand daintily covers her eyes.

She cries in mocks fear. “Oh my! It seems you have caught me! What ever shall the cost of freedom be?”

You point again at your balled up hand, and she sighs with a defeated smile. Her invisible flag turns into a fist. You smack your knuckles together in the world’s sweetest fist bump. Hell yeah.

You help her up. That chase totally wasn’t a waste of three minutes. Nope. No time wasted here.

You take another few seconds to smile at your friends. Man, you guys make such a great team. What _can’t_ you all do? The others are looking a little less grave as well. But right now, you’re a great team that has some important business to attend to!

“I’m going to go get Karkat out of the closet--someone should go put away the TV. We also need to figure out what we’re gonna do with him. And someone get me a bandaid, please.” They all nod, and Dave follows you to the utility closet.

The door swings open, and the closet stays dead silent. Uh. You hope Karkat didn’t die from the chemicals on his gag. With a grunt, you pick up the vacuum and relocate it behind you. As you walk closer to him, you stumble over a bucket lying on its side. Oh, yeah, you almost forgot about throwing that in here! You grab it and hand it to Dave. You should fill that with water and scrub the carpet a bit later.

When you’re within arms reach of the troll, you move the brooms and start plucking off the rags covering his face. Each scrap of cloth removed reveals more of his open, downturned mouth, and wide eyes. He looks really freaked out. Oh great. NOW he’s breaking down. What, did the cleaning supplies scare him? What a big baby.

You kind of feel bad, but after careful analysis, you decide that feeling anything even vaguely sympathetic toward the Alternian is dumb. You are dumb. Stop treating him like an innocent human. He doesn’t deserve that much from you.

You tug at the ropes strapping him to the chair a couple of times to make sure that he didn’t loosen them while he was in here. Yep, as tight as ever. You beckon Dave over and you both drag the chair into the main room.

You stop when you reach the area immediately behind the couch. It’s probably time to take off the gag; he’s inhaled enough chemicals for now. You bend at the waist and lean over him, your hands meeting behind his head and fumbling with the knot. To your surprise, his hair is really spiky---troll hair could double as knifes! How do they even brush their hair, geez? With a blade sharpener?

A couple holes in your hand and some muttered curses later, you’ve successfully removed the gag. You give a victorious smile down at Karkat. You’re greeted by hateful eyes and bared teeth. Ooooookay. You take a step backwards, the rag hanging limply from your fingers.

Jade and Rose are still struggling with unhooking the TV, so you go locate the bucket you handed to Dave and take it to the sink to fill it with hot water. You might as well do something useful while you wait. Dave stays to watch the gray kid. The bucket is about halfway full when you hear a loud thump and a monotone voice say “what the fuck, man.”

You splash scalding water everywhere in your struggle to pick up Zillyhoo and get over to--wait, SHIT, you mean your hammer--the others.

It turns out you just burned yourself and made a mess for no reason. Somehow, Karkat managed to tip his chair onto its left side and is now doing the most pathetic attempt at the sideways worm that you’ve ever seen. He’s making progress toward the door--at an alarming rate of one centimeter per five seconds. Your blond friend stands next to him with an amused smile barely pulling up the corners of his mouth.

You let Zillyhoo drop at your side. (That’s right, Rose. You’re calling it Zillyhoo. Whatcha gonna do about it??) You point your right index finger down at your “escaping” alien. “Uh. Dave? Are you going to do anything about this?”

Dave chuckles a little bit. “No, man, this is gold. Karkat here is rediscovering his lost familial roots as a worm. Who am I to stop the guy from uncovering his hidden past.” As a double fuck you, he squats and sticks his face near Karkat’s. “Follow your dreams, little guy.” He whispers with no expression. Karkat snarls in response and Dave leaps up in surprise; he tries to play it off by running a hand through his hair and pulling at his clothes. You roll your eyes.

Karkat takes up a chant while he inches his way along. A one-word chant, but a chant nonetheless. It’s just a stream of the word, “ _crk_.” It’s one of the very first Alternian words you learned--it means “no.”

Rose and Jade come and stand next to you. Rose shoots an exasperated look at you and Dave, and you decide that the situation is handled and you should go finish filling up that bucket. Karkat is probably smearing even more blood on the floor right now. Sigh.

You turn on the hot water handle of the sink as Rose commands, “ _Karkat, stop._ ”

“ _No. Fuck you._ ” He huffs. You can still hear him worming around on the floor. “ _Don’t talk to me._ ”

Jade pipes in. “ _You don’t have anywhere to go! Didn’t we just prove we won’t hurt you?_ ”

“ _Anywhere is better than here. You guys are fucking psychos._ ”

You add some soap to the water, then haul it out of the sink. You waddle over to them, and set the bucket down heavily. “ _Karkat, stop being a dick. We helped--._ ”

He finally takes his eyes off of the ground in floor of and glares at you with fiery eyes. He hisses some weird slurred noises at you, eyes flitting down to the water container for a second and then back to you. You step back and raise your hands. He takes this as a signal to continue his escape.

You look at Rose to translate for you. She silently mouths out words to herself as she tries to figure it out. You wait patiently until she murmurs a quiet “oh!” and turns to you.

“He said, ‘Especially you. Don’t get any closer.’ I’m not sure why, but that’s what he said.”

You make an irritated noise and fully extend your arms towards him. “What are we supposed to do with him! He doesn’t seem to get the fact that we’re the only ones on this whole planet that won’t kill him in an instant!”

Rose thoughtfully observes your uncooperative troll. “I propose we treat his amnesia.”

It turns out the other two were eavesdropping, because Jade shouts, “What!” and Dave lowers his shades a little bit to stare down Rose. You give her a doubtful look.

“As great of an idea as that is, wouldn’t their brains be weird and need different kinds of treatment? Do we even know if trolls get amnesia like humans do?”

“I don’t see why not. Karkat shows many human mannerisms, and all the signs of psychogenic amnesia--global amnesia, to be exact. It could possibly be retrograde amnesia, but seeing as I can’t spot any severe head injuries, I’m concluding it’s psychogenic for now.”

You all blankly goggle at her.

She sighs. “Basically, he’s forgotten his personal identity and possibly certain aspects of Alternian life. While there’s no cure for it, it can be treated. With humans, we ‘jog’ the victim’s memory and eventually they remember more stuff. Perhaps it would work on Karkat as well.”

You find yourself nodding. It’s the best you can do, for now. You’ve already put your asses on the line trying to hide the troll, and getting rid of him would probably be even more trouble than continuing to hide him. If you get caught with the troll, you’ll get sentenced with treason no matter what. The best course of action is the original one--try to get as much info out of him as you can.

“We’ll have to figure out what to ask him, and how we’re gonna keep watch when we all have training to attend.” Jade chimes.

“Not to mention that our foreign friend here is Seattle’s biggest new star.” Dave notes. “How are we going to fool the army into thinking they killed it? Paint a corpse gray, throw it in the street?”

You butt in. “No, Dave, that would never work. We'd have to glue horns on it too, and where would we find glue that strong! Anyways, we’ll have to deal with this stuff tomorrow. It’s getting really late. Look.”

The shuffling noise has stopped, and Karkat is passed out on the floor. Maybe some of the chemicals Karkat inhaled have effects on Alternians similar to chloroform. Either that, or he’s dead. You hope it’s the former. But even if the chemicals weren’t at fault, the dude’s probably been running around since he woke up in a trash can this morning. You don’t really blame him for falling asleep--you’re exhausted enough to curl up next to him and catch some z’s. Wait what no ew forget you thought that.

Dave nudges Karkat in the back a few times. “Gray guy is out stone cold.” He confirms.

Jade declares she’ll take first watch tonight, and you all gratefully agree. Everyone crowds around the chair and helps tip it right side up. Karkat almost looks comical. His head is lolled to the right and his tongue sticks out past his teeth. His eyebrows are still furrowed--he looks angry even when he’s asleep!

Rose nudges your elbow. “Now might be a good time to get him cleaned up. We can’t have him tracking blood and dirt all over the apartment all the time, and he smells like something died. I think you can knock him out if he wakes up mid-cleaning.”

With an “ugh,” you drag Karkat, chair and all, toward the bathroom. Hopefully he won’t wake up--that would be almost as embarrassing for him as it is for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please remember that this takes place in 2065, so “YOLO” is outdated and so is jake. hell, “YOLO” is outdated in 2014.
> 
> and damn it john don't you know a little booboo like that can infected
> 
> you may ask, "wizord, did you just include a random fluffy chase scene for seemingly no reason? why?"  
> the answer is simple: because i can. and partially because it shows the relationship between some of the characters, but mostly because i can. so ha.
> 
> questions, comments, bleh at: wizord-of-oz.tumblr.com
> 
> proofreader and artist: harehollows.tumblr.com
> 
> thanks for reading, commenting, giving kudos, and subscribing!
> 
> EDIT: we have reached *trumpet noises* 1000 HITS!!! wow i really wasn't expecting that since i'm new at this but thank you to each and every one of you guys for seeing the (actually really terrible... i need to fix it) summary and making the decision to click on it!
> 
> EDIT 3(!!!!!)XCOMBO: john: stare at the invisible camera like you're in the office. ART


	5. TAKE A LIMITED-TIME FREE TRIAL OF DEATH.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> karkat away shies from the kids' olive branch like they're waving a gnarled tree monster's dick in his direction
> 
>  
> 
> (NOTE: Italicized words are spoken in English, not Alternian--either there's no word for it in Alternian, or the sounds in the word aren't featured in the Alternian language.)

**====== > TAKE A LIMITED-TIME FREE TRIAL OF DEATH.**

 

You’re dreaming. That much becomes obvious to you when you find yourself surrounded by a metric fuckton of thick maroon liquid.

In standard dream logic, you decide to ignore the stuff staining your clothes and soaking into your hair. Instead, you gaze up at the vast starry sky above you.

There are so many stars--the blackness of the sky is cut by the pinpricks of light in all the colors of the rainbow. Trying to connect them all into some semblance of a constellation would be the equivalent of agreeing to stargaze forever. Which, right now, you’d actually kind of be okay with.

You want to lift your right hand up and start the long process, but you’re met with resistance and a squelching noise. Huh. You flop your head to the right and tug again.

This time you can see the red stuff wrap around your wrist and pin the limb down. Wow, that’s really fucking rude. What is this stuff to think it can hold you down against your will?

You try to sit up and give it a piece of your mind, but surprise surprise: it suctions around your torso and head, preventing you from moving. Oh god damn it.

You shake your legs around and grunt a bit, attempting to break out. Soon enough, your legs are pinned too and all you can do is violently thrash from side to side.

To your horror, you start sinking--away from the stars, away from air. Your escape efforts increase two-fold, and you punch and kick your arms and legs free only to have them reclaimed by the liquid. Maroon frames your vision and the stars tint themselves red, as if to mock you.

Fuck the stars. They’re tacky anyway.

Despite your efforts, it takes mere seconds for the stuff to seep over your closed mouth and into your nostrils. You take an involuntary snort and your cartilaginous nub burns instantly, making you sneeze and letting the liquid into your mouth. It leaves a metallic, salty taste. What is that?

The stars disappear from your view a moment before you realize you’re currently drowning in blood.

Only now do you start screaming.

It’s much easier to move below the surface. You flail your hands around in the direction you think is upward, still shouting. Your cries are muffled and distorted as blood forces its way down your meal tunnel. All you can see is red, red, and more fucking red.

You feel your motions becoming sluggish. Air is a distant memory of the past.  Your eyelids start to drop closed, and you let your arms drift back down to your sides. Well, you tried. Goodbye, cruel world. It was nice hating you.

A tugging at your feet brings you a fraction of the way out of your trance. Wow, apparently you can’t even DIE in peace. You lazily move your head to look down at who’s annoying you.

You can see something other than red now. You instantly wish you couldn’t.

There’s a corpse clinging to your ankle.

The body looks around your age. His maroon irises are off-focus, staring at a point past your shoulder with bulging yellow eyes. Shattered rectangle specs perch themselves haphazardly on the edge of his nose. His black sweater vest, inscribed with a triangle-looking symbol, is torn around the shoulders. The long-sleeved maroon shirt underneath isn’t faring much better.  It looks like most of the blood has drained out of his face--his paleness and the red lighting leaves the skin looking almost pink. You cringe a little as one of the mini saw-shaped horns bumps against your leg.

[ ](http://hellsalemlot.tumblr.com/image/105222320339)

He’s very creepy and very dead. You don’t want to die near him.

You half-heartedly try to pull your leg out of his grasp, but another tug from the body below counteracts any progress you make. Suddenly the tugging becomes a jerking, and the jerking becomes a yanking, and you’re moving rapidly downward and whoop there go your last air bubbles and everything is getting darker and--

“Karkat!”

You bolt upright.

The voice that calls your name doesn't feel like a familiar one. It’s adenoidal and whiny and ALMOST as annoying as fuck--you’re surprised by the fact that you DON'T feel an impulse to grab the nearest piece of furniture and snap it over the owner’s head. What IS annoying is that the speaker stumbles over the pronunciation of your name too much, like some fuckup that never took the time to learn basic Alternian. Your name is basically a combo of the two most common sounds in the entire fucking language, because whoever named you was obviously a gifted noodle.

Your vision is still about as defined as modern teenage troll art: that is, not very. Everything looks like blurs of bright red, lime, and muted green. Your hand moves up to rub at your eye. Well, it would have, if it wasn't bound at your side.

Oh, yeah, you had almost forgotten about an itty bitty teeny tiny detail--you’re a prisoner.

Instead, you settle for blinking rapid fire until the ugly blobs come into focus.

You're dismayed to see two not-troll faces.

They look like polar opposites, appearance-wise. One is straddling a wooden chair located in the corner of the room, about 7 feet away from you. He’s slouched over the back of the chair, with his chin propped on his hands and less expression than you thought was possible for a life form to have.  The point of his chin digs into his white skin, leaving blotchy red marks--but no sign of giving a shit portrays itself on his face. The dark aviators hiding his eyes aren’t really helping. Yellow-white hair is sticks out of his head at weird angles, like he just woke up. The vibe he gives off reads as, ‘I want you to think I’m cool but in reality I suffer from major insecurity issues so please don’t look any deeper than 2 inches into my half-assed facade.’

His shorter, stocky friend is much closer than you would like--his ass is planted on the elevated sponge plateau, right next to your binded feet and he’s wearing what you would say is a look of concern if you didn’t know that, in reality, these people don’t give a shit about you. Freakishly blue eyes are magnified by the thick framed glasses shoved as far up his nose as possible. Slap a pocket protector on him and have him calculate the curves of some brachistochrone--you’ve got yourself a nerd. If you were a schoolhive bully, you would happily shove him into a locker.

The tugging palm featured in your dayterror was, in fact, nerd boy’s. The dark-skinned hand is now kind of just lightly resting on your foot, with the fingers wrapped loosely around your ankle.

You writhe around to the best of your ability until dark kid gets the idea and removes the offending body part.

You long for the comforting slime of a recuperacoon--you know that sleeping without one leads to dayterrors, but you kind of expected the descent into the hellhole that is the diseased, subconscious part of your mind to be a more gradual process.

Will you tell muscle-nerd McSpongedead Nookcrunch and his loyal pal, stick-hipster Mr. Confidence-Issues-Stemming-From-Childhood-Abandonment of the dangers to the troll mind concerning a lack of recuperacoon?

Fuck no.

If you did tell them about your dayterrors, they’d probably weaponize that and knock you out whenever they get pissed at you. Seriously, what the hell was on that rag yesterday.

It’s pretty obvious that these guys aren’t here to make friends. For once, you’re thankful you’re currently amnesic; even the thought of telling these creatures information about your race gives you a gut feeling that the troll punishment would be having previously mentioned guts ripped out.

Your chances of survival are looking pretty slim right now. Even if you did escape these looneyblock bilgesacks, how would you get back to Alternia? It’s not like you remember your address or your friends (if you had friends), so where would you go even if you did manage to return?

The best option here is to off yourself. Hooray.

“Are you okay? You moved a lot in your sleep.”

Hoo hoo, Glasses wants to know if you’re feeling alright.

“Abso-fucking-lutely. I could go from okay to fantastic if you let me employ your face as a scratching post, how about it?”

He just blinks at you and continues looking concerned. Your witty banter sailed right over his primitive nugbone. Ugh. Where’s the plump white haired female, you need her to translate just how much you hate these kids into the limited number of words they actually understand.

The sound of a meal chute clearing itself stops you from launching another misinterpreted attack. Wow, look who decided to join the verbal thrashing! It’s hipster douche!

You make a conscious effort to lower your eyebrows as far as possible as you glare at him, and Space-Issues turns around to look at him too. Shades’ silent, stoic gaze is infuriating. Why isn’t he talking. Is this--is this a fucking pause for dramatic effect?? Holy fucking SHITPUPPET this guy is the king of douches. It’s official.

You sit in angered silence for a good 10 seconds before FINALLY, he smoothly drones, “ _Johnny_ boy here has seen more of your alien parts than he ever wanted to see. You should say sorry for scarring him for life.”

The words sound rehearsed. So THAT’S why it took him longer than the full title of Troll When Harry Met Sally to say what was on his mind--he was practicing saying it mentally. If this sentence is what he deemed as important, you question his mental soundness.

The nerdy looking kid’s face goes red, and he starts scraping at the dirt under his nails instead of looking at you like he did so curiously a few seconds ago.

You look down at yourself and see that, yes, you are clean and you are outfitted in new clothes. Specifically, some beige shorts and a too-short white shirt with some satanic looking sopor glob on the front. As it smiles up at you, you feel the need to throw your new clothes into the nearest flame.

So what? You don’t smell like shit anymore. You want your old clothes back though, your midriff is getting a little frosty. It’s kind of strange, you don’t remember taking a bath. Wait, so that means….

Oh.

Um.

Well then.

Serves him right...you guess?

Thank god you were knocked the fuck out.

Fuck you, hipster kid, for embarrassing all parties in the room. Like this situation could get any more awkward. Maybe this is what he’s devoted his existence to: downgrading your life from standard hell to Satan’s fiery asshole itself.

You’re all saved from the stupidity that is hipster-douche when the door cracks open and another four-eyed being sticks her head into the room.

She squeaks out some weird noises and Johnny (apparently?? oh my god that is such an unfortunate name) nods his head at the speed of light. Shades just tilts his head up.

More squeaks are exchanged, and then oh no god damn it she’s turning to talk to you. She’s only spoken to you once so far, but it seems like she has at least a proficient grasp on your language. This means you can insult her and she’ll understand it. Perfect.

“So you finally woke up, sleepyhead! It took you long enough!”

“Oh, I’m sorry for being gagged with the sanitary equivalent of used load gaper paper dipped in knock-out drugs, I can kindly compensate you for all the pain I caused by--”

“That’s cool and all, but shut up, Grumpy! We’re eating in five. Be there! _Toodles_!” With a wave of her hand and some weird fucking word (what the hell are tew-dulls), she clicks the door shut.

When was the last time you ate? A hundred sweeps? You’re torn between rebelling against your captors by means of starvation, or being a piss poor excuse of a troll and eating.

Your stomach decides to betray trollkind and growls like a barkbeast. Great. Well now they know.

If you’re going to cave in and stuff your face like a squealing oinkbeast, you’ll need possession of your limbs. Hopefully, these guys have enough brain cells to comprehend that.

Either these organisms eat with their feet or they’re, simply put, fucking stupid. Much to your frustration, they unbind your feet and hands from your side--but quickly stick some manacles around your wrists, so your hands are now uselessly dangling in front of you. Wow, really helpful. Fuck you very much.

Johnny is still avoiding eye contact and at this point you’re questioning whether Shades is keeping his sunglasses on because he’s got facial scarring from some freak accident many a sweep ago, or he’s just ugly (your money is on the latter). You’re taken by surprise when Shades grabs a hold of the chain between your hands and yanks you off the spongey platform you were laying on, nearly ripping your arms out of their sockets. As soon as you’re vertical, he releases the chain and you stumble forward a few steps from the momentum.

Your ankles feel really weird from being tied up for so long; they promptly decide that walking places is overrated, and they tip you sideways onto the floor again. You can just feel the smirk emanating from Shades weird, sort of gaunt face.  It burns.

The wall serves as a buttress as you scooch over to the wall and slide your back up it. You balance yourself, then take a step away from the wall. The universe must really want you to starve to death, because you trip over the shittiest sword you’ve ever laid eyes on. Greetings again, floor.

Maybe you’ll get to the table sometime before Troll Jesus comes back from beyond the realm of the unliving.

 

* * *

 

What the hell is on your nutrition plateau right now.

It’s off white and lumpy and thick and moist and has a taste equivalent to that of snot dripped out of the sniffnodes of roadkill that, prior to death, spent the past few sweeps sniffing its own ass. You bet it’s toxic.

You shovel it in your mouth anyways.

Other than your loud gulping and chewing noises, it’s silent. Your captors aren’t even talking in their own weird language--the table atmosphere is quiet and tense as everyone struggles to chew on their “food.” You slurp your meal louder than usual to compensate.

After witnessing Johnny glance at pale girl no fewer than six times in the course of five minutes, you know something is up. Maybe they decided to quit the bullshit sentiment of “helping” you. Maybe they finally decided to act on your request--your death would make things a lot easier for all idiots involved in this whole circlejerk. You die and don’t accidentally betray your species, they don’t have to hide a troll, it’s a win-win.

You’re transporting another handful of the mush into your mouth when pale girl speaks in that modulated voice of hers. “I take it you’re hungry.”

You look up at her mid-chew, then plaster on your toothiest and most sarcastic grin. “Holy shit, guys, we’ve discovered your species’ newest genius! Have you misplaced your journal of philosophical musings and your certificate of smartness? I'm surprised to see you don't have them on hand.” Flecks of food launch themselves from your mouth and onto the table. Johnny visibly flinches as some mush lands on his nutrition plateau.

Her black lips purse tightly. She looks over you with stern, almost custodial disapproval--why is this image so familiar to you. If she painted herself gray, put on some horns, dyed her hair black and cut it a bit shorter, then you swear she would look almost exactly like someone you think you know. Her signature lavender color also looks a bit off….

Snapping fingers whip you back to reality. Pale girl frowns at you. “It doesn’t take ingenuity to see that you’ve been abandoned and you don’t have even a semblance of a clue as to what’s going on here. You don’t even know what the hemospectrum is.”

For once, you’re at a loss for words. There’s that weird ‘hemo’ word again--why does she keep using it?

“Highbloods? Lowbloods?” You give her a blank stare.

She tries something different. “ _Humans_?” Nope, nothing.

“The Alternia-Earth war?” There’s a war? Since when?

Exasperated, she raises a hand to rub at her temple. Geez, this girl’s dismay fluid is out of control.

“Her Imperious Condescension?” Ah! There we go! You’d have to be spongedead to not know that one.

You sneer, “Of course I know who Her Imperious Condescension is. She’s only been our empress for what, the past few millennia? I know you think I’m dumb, but that cuts really deep. You owe me a rocketship home. Or at least a culling, preferably of myself. Though I’d be more than content if one of you guys got murdered instead.”

Tan girl gives you an offended look, and interjects, “We’re not going to kill you, fuckass!”

You turn your entire torso left to stare her down head on.

“First of all, that was a bastardization of two of the finest words in existence. How can you live with yourself knowing that you will never possess the capability to finetune your insults into something that’s, you know, actually insulting.”

Now you untwist so you’re addressing the whole table. “And secondly, what the hell do you mean, ‘we’re not going to kill you.’” You try to imitate tan girl’s high voice as you repeat her line, going for a maximum insult factor.

Everyone at the table stares at you in sullen silence. Shades picks at his nails.

You continue. “I know that your lives are boring and insignificant, but are you really desperate enough to add trouble like this into your daily routine. Can’t we just snap my stem now and part ways as amicably as possible, considering you guys tied me up and threw knives at me and hid me in closets and fucking threw a bucket in my face, REALLY.” You give a pointed stare at Johnny, who’s currently watching pale girl as she translates as quickly as she can. You watch as he hears what you said, and confusion crosses his features.

“Unfortunately, that’s just what the government wants.” Pale girl sighs daintily and looks down at the table.

Snorting, you retort, “What is this, some kind of B-list action movie? Did you wigglers read some young adults novels and get some revolutionary ideas, or do you actually have a reason for--”

"We want the war to end." Johnny FINALLY decides to grace you with his oh-so-pleasant voice. He doesn't expand any further. Wow, consider yourself informed!

"How am I expected to care about some supposed war that I have no recollection of? If anything, it sounds like you pink wriggly things have been gunning down my far superior species! Why should I help the enemy?"

"The government wants the war to end too, but they're going about it as unproductively as possible," Rose explains. "They shoot Alternians on sight; there hasn't been any progress intelligence-wise or in the fighting for years. Getting information from you would probably end the war and save millions of lives--Alternian and human."

"You want me, a troll that has no recollection of basically anything important that has happened in the past few sweeps, to give you top secret imperial information. And in return, my species loses the 'war,' I'm a traitor to Alternia, AND I get to live out the rest of my wretched life in this shithole you call your hive." You raise an eyebrow. "Remind me why I should help you?"

Pale girl isn’t even bothering to translate for her friends at this point. She looks furious.

“Because you could help EVERYONE that’s been stuck in this damn war for the past half _century_!” Pale girl’s composure finally cracks as she slams her fist onto the table. “Humans can help Alternia become a more _humane, egalitarian_ society! If anyone would benefit from change on Alternia, it’s you.”

You’re not sure what a “century” is, but from how she’s acting, it’s a pretty long time. You’re pretty sure that troll dictionaries don’t contain words like “humane” and “egalitarian” either, but you get the sense that they’re supposed to be “good things.”

You hesitate before you speak again. “...I don’t see how I would benefit from any of this. In reality, I’m probably the one getting the LEAST out of this clusterfuck of ‘imperial betrayal’ and ‘saving lives with information’ bullshit.”

“Not according to the hemospectrum.”

And there’s that damn word AGAIN. Will someone PLEASE elaborate further into this apparently MONUMENTAL FACET OF TROLL SOCIETY, of which only WIGGLERS and those in VEGETATIVE SPONGE STATES are uninformed of.

You stare at her expectantly, waiting for a long-overdue explanation.

“You’re a mutant.” Thank you, pale girl, for cutting right to the chase. You really learned a lot about your mystery word just now.

“Mutants get culled.” Johnny adds helpfully.

Wait, wait, wait a second.

So, basically, what they’re telling you is even if you were to magically get home and not give these crotchstains ANY info, and you could even find out the government secrets of these “humans--” and you would STILL get culled.

Wow, life really seems worth living right about now. Hint hint: sarcasm.

You don’t make a huge fit. You just sit there in contemplative silence and scan the mush on your plate.

A high voice softly says, “You can help us fix that. _Humans_ have this weird...” tan girl pauses to think of the right word, “...concept of ‘being nice and having rights.’ If _humans_ win this war, we’ll help thousands of mutants like you, and even more lowbloods!”

You heave a sigh. “Even if I did want to help you--which I’m not saying I do!--it’s not like I have much information for you.”

For the first time since you were locked up in this shithole, you see pale girl give you what looks like a genuine smile. It’s only the corners of her lips tilted upward, but it’s there nonetheless.

“Karkat,” she asks, “can you remember if trolls have a condition where they lose their memories?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess. It usually winds you up straight on the culling block.”

“ _Humans_ have the condition too. It’s called--” she carefully pronounces each syllable for you, “ _am-nee-shuh_.”

“Yeah. So.”

“The difference is in how we handle it. Trolls kill those who have it, seeing it as a weakness. _Humans_ try to fix it.”

 _Humans_ sure are weird.

“We’ll try to get your memories back, you can share useful information you remember, _humans_ can get rid of Alternian social, political, and economic inequalities. Everyone wins.”

You suppose you can hold off on culling yourself for a little bit, at least. The idea of offing yourself doesn’t quite appeal to you yet. If things get too rough, you can always nab one of those shitty swords that are thrown everywhere.

You mutter, “If I agree to this can we take these handcuffs off.”

Pale girl’s smile grows to include her teeth; she translates for the others. Tan girl starts clapping excitedly. Johnny does a fist pump (neeerrrrrrddddddd). Shades just deposits another scoop of mush into his mouth.

Pale girl quiets everyone down and says, “I believe some introductions are in order. My name is _Rose_.”

She goes around the table now, pointing at each person one by one.

“Our weapons expert is _Jade_ ,” a smile spreads on dark-haired girl’s face and she waves rapid fire, “our resident prankster is _John_ ,” nerd boy looks up and shows off his buckteeth, “and the epitome of coolness on this planet is _Dave_.” Everyone’s eyes flit to Shades, whose only reaction is to continue chewing like some kind of pandead moobeast.

“Hooray, whoopty whoop, I don’t give a shit.”

Jade pouts. “Come on, Karkat. We’re trying to be nice here! We’ve all got to be nice to each other in order for this to work.”

“Just because I agreed to this doesn’t mean I have to like it.” You continue speaking as you watch John stand up from the table and go fiddle with the TV. “In fact, I demand that no one here is going to like it. I’ll make sure of it. We’re all going to suffer through my healing process. And we’ll all come out with exactly zero new friends. Being friendly is strictly prohibited. I don’t want to catch the disease that morons like you call ‘friendship.’”

A bunch of gibberish starts streaming out of the TV; you glance over to see a black screen with some kind of cluckbeast in the middle. Probably not important.

You look back at the table’s occupants. “So, are you going to go back on your promise and leave me to rot in these handcuffs?” You jingle your hands together for emphasis.

Rose looks at Dave and Jade and starts talking in that weird _human_ language. Ugh, they’re probably deciding whether or not they can trust you to not run away. It’s not really like you have anywhere else to go at this point.

You slump backwards into your chair, your claws tapping out a rhythm on the table. Any sweep now, people.

You lose the beat and nearly shit your shorts when a high beeping noise fills the apartment. Oh fuck, is the government back? You brace yourself for another round of hiding in the closet.

Your auricular sponge clots pick up the source of the sound--it’s coming from the TV. The screen isn’t black anymore. Now it’s a view of a city street. The whole place looks eerily abandoned.

The beeping noise abruptly transitions into someone talking quickly. The camera view bounces up and down; the cameraperson must be running. This is giving you a pan ache.

Many bounces and two left turns later, the camera stills. It’s pointed at the ground in a dark alleyway. Specifically, it’s pointed at something ON the ground. Okay, you do NOT like where this is going.

There’s something gray and dark red, sprawled out and unmoving. A pack of _humans_ are surrounding it in a circle, with gun barrels pointed directly at it. Someone nudges it with their foot, but it stays still. The camera edges closer and one of the gunmen moves to the side so they can get a clearer view.

It’s a troll. Their left leg is severed just under the knee, and their maroon blood has long since pooled and dried underneath them. A pair of rectangular specs are thrown on the ground next to them, the glass crushed into tiny fragments. Their clothes are ripped into tatters, but you can make out the remains of their triangular sigil. You have a feeling that they used to be wearing a sweater vest.

This troll is the same one from your dayterror.

You very promptly and very noisily go shithive maggots.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this took way too long
> 
> questons, comments, concerns: wizord-of-oz.tumblr.com
> 
> artist and proofreader: harehollows.tumblr.com
> 
> i got a gigapause! it's just Wizord of Oz, but yeah
> 
> if you thought this chapter took a long time, you'll be really excited to hear that the next chapter will probably take LONGER! *confetti* 
> 
> oh and btw i'm now tracking the "spacemanstuck" tag on tumblr! just in case
> 
> thanks for reading, giving kudos, commenting, and subscribing!
> 
> EDIT: i am stupid and continuity errors are something i struggle with thank god i have my sister
> 
> EDIT 2XCOMBO: we hav ert.


	6. WATCH TROLL BOY GO SHITHIVE MAGGOTS.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> troll that's so raven is apparently a thing

**====== > WATCH TROLL BOY GO SHITHIVE MAGGOTS.**

 

“The Alternian, which broke past city limits around 8pm yesterday, was discovered in a dark alley near Madison Street at 8:34am. The maroonblood has been severely maimed and dead for at least 10 hours. There is no sign of other Alternian lifeforms in the city at this time--the threat has subsided exponentially. The Seattle Military Government has declared the lockdown will continue as the land troops make final checks and try to locate where the troll entered the city; all business and intra-city travel will resume at 1pm.”

The drone of the smooth female voice on the TV is merely background noise as everyone tries to calm your captive down. Things were going so well! You were being nice, like Rose told all of you to be! Karkat seemed to agree with your plan! You even got in a few words of Alternian to him!

But as soon as you turned on the TV, BAM. Karkat freakout central. You guess you can understand why. There was a dead troll on screen, Karkat is a troll; the situation probably just got very real for him. What doesn’t make sense are the things he’s shouting--you’re not great at Alternian, but the words you do pick out make you wonder if there’s more to this outburst than seeing a dead compatriot.

“ _...oh my FUCKING...he was in my...how do I know...see the fucking FUTURE...fucking TROLL THAT’S SO RAV--get OFF of…_ ”

Jade has him tackled on the floor and is holding him down by his shoulders. It’s not like he’s trying to hit any of you, it’s just reassuring to have him pinned down in his current state. Rose is trying to talk over Karkat and get him to chill out. Needless to say, it isn’t working well. Dave has his sword at the ready and is standing to the side. He’s muttering stuff under his breath; it looks like he’s just waiting for things to get out of hand. Always the optimist.

Karkat management is handled for the moment, so you make it your job to listen for any useful info on the TV. Someone has to! You may have custody over a moody teen alien now, but life goes on! Apparently, life will resume at 1pm today. Meaning you guys have to work out schedules for who gets to babysit and who gets to train at the base. Yay.

It’s kind of creepy how convenient it is that a troll corpse that looks about the same age as Karkat just shows up as soon as you need it. Not only that, but the military is convinced that it’s Karkat. Usually, only one Alternian breaks into city limits in three months. To have two get in on the same day is really, really weird. You wonder if there’s some sort of connection between the two’s arrivals…. You’ll ask Karkat about it later. You have other important stuff to handle right now.

The screen flashes your city’s emblem one more time and then goes static. You press the mute button and hop over the couch to where a much calmer Karkat is currently laying. Jade has released his shoulders and he looks almost identical to a toddler post-tantrum--maybe not quite so teary, but just as pathetic.

You work out some tenses and verb conjugations before you address him. “ _Are you done now?_ ”

If looks could kill, Karkat just committed genocide. Well, you mean, his race HAS committed genocide but… that’s not the point you were trying to make aw fuck just forget it. He makes no sign that he’s going to elaborate on his freak out. God, he acts like such a fucking child. How will holding back information help him in any way at all?

Being a teenage mom is hard when you’re 16 and a boy. Also when your child looks like he is approximately the same age as you in alien years.

You can feel the slight frown on your face as you start working out details with your friends.

“Well, the city is opening up again in like 4 hours, so we need to work out schedules for everyone.” You’re met with a chorus of groans. “Dave? You’re the one that always gets a boner over planning, I’m letting you handle this one.”

Dave shrugs. “What can I say, man. Something about clocks and calendars really just rubs my minute hand the right way, you know.”

EUGH.

His eyebrows raise an inch as everyone gives him disgusted stares. But he seems to grasp that now isn’t the time to extend that metaphor; he gets down to business.

It takes the better part of two hours. Karkat must be bored out of his mind; he falls asleep on the floor about 30 minutes into the discussion (which is held entirely in English, Karkat still isn’t trustworthy enough for that). You have to figure out whose military training clashes with whose, think of reasons why you suddenly have to stay home for a couple days of the week, how many people need to be guarding at a time, and what to do about treating Karkat’s amnesia. You briefly bring up the troll corpse, but it’s decided that you’ll talk about it on Sunday, when all of you are free.

Everyone agrees that at least for the first two weeks, there will be two of you in the apartment with Karkat at all times. Military training goes on from Monday through Saturday (this is America, of COURSE you have Sunday off). You work out the six combos of two people for the two weeks, and for the rest of the month you individually pick days to cover. Everyone conveniently ignores the fact that Dave gives himself the least amount of days.

Today, you and Jade get to go to the base. The others have to stay behind because “the bathroom is shit and the water pipe is broke; we don’t want to spend the money on a professional, so shit let’s be plumbers.” Rose waves you farewell and Dave tilts his head up as Jade closes the door behind you. Karkat is in good hands. You hope that crash you heard just now wasn’t from your home.

You’re glad to be training today--nothing takes your mind off of things quite like piloting. You weren’t even that interested in the military until you got to specialize in the Air Force. And no, you don’t only like it because of that one scene from Con Air (though, if you ever got to clip a car to your plane, you would die a happy man). It’s your stomach dropping, the wheels leaving the ground and the buildings getting smaller and smaller until they’re the size of your pinky. It’s your ears popping in that painful-but-pleasurable way as you sweep over the city. It’s the temporary freedom from the chaos that is Seattle. It’s seeing everything that humans used to own past the city limits reduced to rubble by those fucking aliens, and the hope that you can take it back. All that, and your mentor is cute.

Shit, don’t tell Rose or Jane you said that.

Jade seems excited to be heading back too. You remember a few days ago that she was talking about some new kind of gun she was working on, something that doesn’t use bullets… You’re sure there was more to it than just that, but that was around the point in the conversation where she started talking physics and atoms and stuff that you find really hard to listen to attentively. Whatever it is, you’re sure it’s cool.

It doesn’t take long until you and Jade are standing at the chain link fence to the base. Your friend presses the dirty red intercom button and five seconds later, you’re connected to Wei--NDY. Wendy. You were totally saying Wendy. She goes through the basic “are you okay’s” and “your siblings were really worried about you’s” but you wish she would just let you in already. Every second spent outside the gates is a second not flying!

After an eternity, she finally tells you to hold up your laminated ID’s up to the camera located next to the intercom button. You let Jade go first, because you are a true gentleman. Then she steps aside and you take her place, holding up your military ID and watching the red laser scan over it twice before blinking off.

The gate squeals open, and you start walking toward the enormous concrete base.

Cool air and tight hallways make up most of the building. You say hello to the armed guards standing beside the door, and continue straight. There are no windows or any distinguishing features to the halls; a lifetime of running around this place is the only reason you’re not lost. The thuds of your shoes on the smooth white tile below bounce off the walls--you and Jade walk in silence. There are too many people, too many surveillance cameras around to say anything without the fear of slipping up and mentioning something.

After parting ways with Jade at the weapon development lab, you visited the lockers and grabbed your duffel bag stuffed with your uniform. Now you’re entering the flight prep area, a concrete-floored room with green tiling on the walls. Harsh fluorescent lights reveal the metal benches and tables lining the walls of the spacious room, with one large table in the center. A matching door across from the one you’re currently standing in leads to the flight tarmac. It’s basically any interior decorator’s nightmare.

You toss your duffel onto the center steel table and start to pull on your green flight suit over your normal clothes. It’s about halfway on when a muted clicking of boots coming down the hall alerts you that your mentor is here. The party has officially arrived.

“Jooooohhhnnnnn-AY!” Five feet two inches of blonde teenager seats itself on the edge of the tabletop. “ OMG, you didn’t die? How many alien butts did you have to kick with your sweet ninja moves to survive the trollpocalypse?”

You mimic a little karate chop. “So many, Roxy. So many. They couldn’t keep off me, my awesome kicks were like magnets to their Alternian asses. Dave cried like three times, he was so awed. It was beautiful.”

Roxy gives you a scheming smile. “Pics or it didn’t happen. I don’t make the rules, and while they might be hella stupid, thems the rules.”

You put on your thinking face. “Or,” you suggest, “We ignore the rules, because since when have you ever listened to them.”

She strokes her chin. “You gotta pretty valid point there, Windsock.” She pounds her fist on the table like a mock gavel. “Let it be known that on…”

She looks at you. “What was the date yesterday?” You tell her. She resumes.

“That on June 4th, 2065, John Egbert whooped thousands of alien butts for the sake of humanity. And that Dave Strider cried like an alcoholic whose booze stash has run dry. Been there. It fuckin’ sucks, I’m offering mad condolences for you, bro. Where was I. Oh yeah, hear hear n shit!”

You exchange a sweet high five. Then she tells you to hurry up and finish putting on your gear, you haven’t got all day you know. You double time it.

Here’s the deal: Roxy Lalonde almost always gets what she wants. She’s the kind of person you want to please--making her unhappy is like putting up a “no fun allowed” sign on a playground. Everyone goes out of their way to satisfy her, which, thankfully, isn’t a hard task.

This is why she’s allowed to wear her striped scarf that’s three feet over regulation--she charmed the pants off the director. That, and she’s so good at what she does that no one would ever dare to think that a long scarf could be a safety hazard for her. Safety rules don’t really apply to your sister’s best friend. The air force has kindly overlooked the numerous times she’s broken the rules in order to make a hit. It’s what the Seattle military does best, after all.

Roxy picks at her dark blue flight suit (green for initiates, dark blue for everyone else) and swings her legs around while you yank on your boots.

“So…. I take it Rosie couldn’t come to the base today? What’s that chick up to, writing more steamy adventures between her sexy wizards? If so, then she needs to send that to me ASAP. I live for the hot wizard yaois.”

You laugh a bit and she showcases a cheeky smile that quickly morphs into a concerned one. “But if she doesn’t have a proper excuse like that, why’s my girl skippin’ out on me in this time of deep trouble?”

Aw, poor Rox. This question is asked basically every day Rose doesn’t come to visit Roxy, which is about half of the time; ever since their mom… passed, things between the sisters have been a little iffy. Especially after Roxy’s bout of alcoholism. They still care about each other, it’s just that Rose has an offhand way of showing it. You would know best of anyone not in the family. You’ve experienced it firsthand.

“Rose wanted to drop in, but Jade and I forced her to work as an unpaid plumber today,” you lie, lacing your black boots. “She told me to tell you that she’ll have the magical bearded man sex on your desk by tomorrow.”

The elder Lalonde sister claps excitedly and you feel so much more guilty. Not only are you lying to her about having an ALIEN in your house, but now you’re lying about her sister. Well, she probably knows you’re fibbing anyway… but the guilt still remains.

The blonde launches herself off the table and saunters past you to grab her helmet from a bench on the left of the room. You’re fumbling with the zipper of your suit when you feel her hand firmly swat your ass.

“ROXY!”

With blood rushing to your cheeks (both sets), you whip around to glare at her as she struts to the door leading outside. Roxy stops to look at you halfway through the doorway.

“What, I can’t help it if you just leave your cute butt hanging out in the open like that! Your glutes wanted some smackin’; they were calling to me--I am the butt whisperer. And soon your butt will be crying in even more pain if you don’t get it out on the tarmac in two minutes!”

Cue the door slam. Yep, there it is. Will you ever be free of all this sexual tension that will never become anything serious?

The answer is no. And that’s fine.

Helmet under your armpit, you follow Butt-Smacker outside and internally cringe at the hot air that starts hugging you. Eugh, air conditioning, please. Your feet instinctually walk you over to your plane.

Ah, yes. Here’s where you can start to utterly and totally forget about Karkat for the next two hours: Plane inspection.

You lean against the sleek, heated metal of the plane you inherited from your father. You really didn't want it when they first read you the will three years ago. That was a slap to the face. But, when confronted with the alternative of having it scrapped for parts, you reluctantly accepted your dad’s pride and joy.

It's old. Like, really old. 2035 tech at least. You aren't quite sure how your dad was able to fly it so well without any of the latest gadgets. You're good, but you're not THAT good. Your first step in fixing it up was installing all the new stuff.

But other than that, a new paint job, and replacing some of the parts, you kept it more or less the same. You didn't want to remove too much of your dad's memory from the piece of junk. You refused to change the name of the plane, _Heir_. Dave insisted you rename it _Unreal Heir_ , but no, Dave, what the hell. That's not even a good name in an ironic sense, dude, what the fuck, no.

Roxy walks up beside you as you scrutinize the fuselage. “You almost ready there? Dude, hurry up! I wanna get flying, c’mon.”

You scan over the plane one more time, then finally place your helmet on top of your head.

“Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

 

Two hours and one routine flight later, you’re back on the ground and are making your way to where Jane works. You don’t have cake for her today, but she’s a big girl, she’ll survive. Knowing her, she’ll get back to her apartment with the other older kids and make one anyway.

Staying in the base overnight is enough to wear anyone down, but you weren’t anticipating Jane to look this tired. Her red cat-eye glasses do little to hide the circles under her eyes as she squints at her computer screen. Her polka dot black and white blouse and her pleated light blue skirt look wrinkled and dirty, which is disturbing considering it’s _Jane_ wearing them.

Maybe she when she gets home she should just skip baking that cake and go straight to bed.

Jane is oblivious to your approach; her bright red nails are making an annoying clacking noise on the keyboard as she types.

Clack clack clack.

“Jane!”

Clack clack click click.

“Jane.”

Clack click clack.

“Jane, seriously.”

She blearily looks over at you. “Huh? Oh, hello, John.”

You lean against the edge of her cubicle and try your best attempt at a ‘concerned parent’ look. “Jane, you’re not looking so good.”

She rubs at her face, smearing her eyeliner a bit. “Gosh, I’m sorry. I’m just really exhausted right now.”

You eyeball her as she rests her forehead on the edge of the desk and stares at the floor.

You try to comfort her. “I know that it’s bad whenever an Alternian gets into the city, but was it really that stressful this time? You guys fixed it up in less than 24 hours, that’s pretty awesome.” About halfway through, Jane starts groaning loudly.

“But it’s not all fixed up yet. Citizens keep phoning in and saying ‘that’s not the same Alternian as before!’ Well, hoo hoo! If the government can’t seem to find another alien despite having checked every nook and cranny of the city, you can always just send out a squad of highly trained soldiers yourself!”

The phone to her right rings. Without lifting her head, Jane presses a button on the side of her headset.

“Seattle military base. How may I help you--no. Yes, I know that--no, we have been unable to find another--listen, ma’am, unless you have factual evidence of the existence of another Alternian in our city, I cannot--no, you listen to ME, Buster--no, we’re finished here, good day.”

She punches the button again and groans yet again, then raises her head.

Uh oh. Not good. While the maroonblood looked a lot like Karkat, some people saw him in person--they know that they’re two different people. You’re kind of surprised that more people haven’t noticed a difference. You have the fact that only super blurry pictures of Karkat were taken to thank.

“Shouldn’t you be off in the planning room and not on office duty?” You ask her.

“I wish. But alas, they’re having some sort of top secret meeting. Something about a new program funded by Skaia Corp. Only the high military officials are in attendance.”

An awkward silence ensues while she taps her keyboard a few more times.

She puts a finishing flourish on whatever she’s typing, then looks up and grins at you. “Well, I’m happy that you’re fine. I was really worried about you guys in the apartment. You didn’t have any trouble…did you?”

Before she even finishes, you’re replying, “Nope! No trouble at all.”

Wow, way to be sketchy, John. Why is it always so hard to lie to Jane?!

Thank god Jane is tired, her only reaction is to slowly blink. “Okay.” She goes back to typing again. “You shouldn’t wait up for me, John. I’m going to be here for quite some time. I’ll text you when I get back to my apartment. Goodnight.”

You kiss her forehead goodnight, then head for the exit. This whole alien thing might be a bit harder than you anticipated.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha well this was a filler chapter wasn't it
> 
> this is what happens when you have a bunch of huge tests, you get sick, and you go to a con in a short period of time
> 
> don't worry, we're skipping like 2 weeks into the future next chapter and we'll actually move the plot forward in that one
> 
> my homestuck tumblr: wizord-of-oz.tumblr.com
> 
> my sister/proofreader/illustrator: harehollows.tumblr.com
> 
> thanks for reading, leaving kudos, commenting, and subscribing!
> 
> EDIT: ooh i forgot to say theres a hint at a backstory in here hohoho


	7. HAVE THE ALIEN THING NOT BE AS HARD AS YOU ANTICIPATED.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which 11 year-olds are huge dicks
> 
> i'll have you know i cringed the entire time i was writing noises for this 
> 
> your reward for waiting 4 weeks for this chapter is a chapter 3 times longer than usual congrats

**====== > HAVE THE ALIEN THING NOT BE AS HARD AS YOU ANTICIPATED.**

 

“ _Hemospectrum, Alternia-Earth War, Her Imperious Condescension._ ”

“ _Give me a second, I know this shit._ ” Karkat scrunches his eyes shut as Jade watches him expectantly. “ _Uh, the Condescension was having trouble keeping the lowbloods down, so she…ugh, fuck me sideways with a cactus, what did she do again._ ”

Jade sighs and throws her flashcard to the floor. “ _She started the war with Earth to keep the fully grown lowbloods distracted and to prevent more rebellions. We don’t know why she chose Earth though._ ”

Rose and Dave are at the base today, leaving you and Jade on babysitting duty. The fact that you don’t have Rose standing next to you translating is a sign of how much better you are at speaking Alternian. And just over the course of two weeks! Of course, you have to fill in the blanks a lot. But that’s not too hard with Karkat because half the time he’s just cussing you out in some unnecessarily creative way.

Jade and Karkat currently are seated criss-cross applesauce on the floor in front of the couch with what looks like six hundred billion flashcards strewn around them. It was Rose’s idea--have him listen to a group of words and figure out the relationship between them. It sounds boring, but it actually works.

Karkat has started regaining some of his memories. Well, memories of Alternia mainly. Well, the basics of Alternia and a few other details. Once he remembered the hemospectrum (“ _How could I ever forget the fucking HEMOSPECTRUM. Even grubs fresh from the oral sphincter of the Mother Grub know that, welcome to complete-moronville, population: me._ ”), the rest of the basics came tumbling in after it. But even basic progress like that is still progress! He’ll start remembering new material any day now!

The only thing alien boy remembers about his personal life so far are really vague characteristics of what he THINKS are his friends. You were surprised to hear he had so many--he’s not exactly the most amicable guy. Regardless, he has pals spanning the entire hemospectrum. Maybe you’ll get names soon.

He also finally opened up about his freakout over the troll corpse on TV. He muttered something about seeing the body in a dream he had, and didn’t elaborate much further than that. Rose thought it was plausible that some of his old memories would resurface in a dream state, but you personally think that’s a bunch of bullshit. Your fingers are crossed that Karkat will be honest with you in the future.

Thank god for that troll corpse, though. No one has knocked on your door yet saying that you’re being arrested and that Karkat will be shot.

You lean against the countertop and watch as Jade plucks another card off the carpet and squints at it. “ _Mutants, culling, rebellions._ ” Your eyes flit over to the patient. He’s not looking so good. His head is lowered into his hands and he’s pressing at the sides of his forehead.

Welp, looks like it’s time to stop for the day. When you started treatment for Karkat, you weren’t anticipating the migraines that came with it. Migraines is actually a pretty tame word for it, based on his reaction to them.

Jade seems to have sensed this--she drops forward onto her hands and knees and starts gathering the cards. You push off the counter and quietly tread over to Karkat. You softly place your hand on his shoulder. Without a word, he gets to his feet and lets you lead him towards your room.

This has happened enough that you guys have a system--opening his eyes, weird smells, and talking make his “thinkpan” hurt even more, so those are off limits. He keeps his eyes shut and keeps quiet while you guide him to the darkest, quietest, least smelly part of the apartment: your clothes closet.

You settle him down on top of the giant pile of random stuff (and painful stuff--you’re pretty sure he has some of Jade’s metal scraps in there) he’s built up in the corner, then slide the wooden door shut as quietly as possible. You tiptoe out of the bedroom and click that door closed behind you too.

How have you gone from brutally killing trolls to taking care of one so tenderly?

Is Karkat the only troll this...humanlike? Or have you humans been wrong all along?

Of course, this doesn’t mean you’re going to STOP brutally killing them. It’s just more of a burden on your conscious knowing that these aliens have actual thoughts and feelings and hopes and friends and holy crap you need to stop right now.

Damn Karkat and his supernatural ability to screw everything up for everyone.

You reconvene with Jade in the kitchen area; she fills a pot with water while you break out the food to be boiled for dinner. Nutrition Paste A, yum. Coughcoughnotreally.

“Did we make any progress?” The fact that you start whispering doesn’t get by you--he’s not even in this room, you don’t have to be quiet. But you are anyways.

Jade turns up the heat on the stove and rubs at her neck. “Hm, I think he told me about how one of his friends really likes the number eight. Well, he didn’t call them a friend. He called them a ‘pyscho bitch with an obsession over the number of times she’s taken a shower in her life.’”

You snort and accidentally spill food powder all over the counter. “Thanks, Karkat. We can now successfully win the war.”

Jade raids the pantry again to find something that will add flavor to your meal; you tackle sweeping the powder into your hand and then into the boiling pot. Food hygienics are the least of your troubles in the long run. Anyone that can’t handle their food being touched will have their food touched two times more than required.

Barely audible, Jade mutters, “We’re running low on food. Whose turn is it to shop--”

The relative quiet is broken by Dave basically kicking down the door. The thin piece of wood slams against the wall and he stumbles in, arms weighted down with battered canvas bags. The other resident blonde strolls in behind him, only carrying some manila envelopes and her phone.

“Don’t look at me,” Rose says. “Dave insisted on carrying all the groceries, probably to assert his position as the muscleman of the house. The psychological damage I could have caused him by taking some of them would have been devastating.”

“While I did all the real work and brought food to the starving folks in Apartment 413,” Dave huffs. “Rose worked on perfecting her snarky smirk. While it may have done some damage before, she’s upgraded it to lethal now. She killed like seven kids on our way home. How does it feel to be a serial killer, Rose?”

“Magnificent.”

“Good, because you’re about to have an eighth victim unless someone helps me carry this shit.”

You shuffle over and remove the bags on his right arm. He breathes a ‘thanks, man’ and heavily deposits them on the kitchen counter.

Rose comes to stand next to you and starts flipping through the papers in the envelope. You glance over and see printed phrases like “Skaia Corp funds” and “military improvement.” Yawn. Since when is Skaia Corp NOT funding some new government program?

“Hey, Rose, what are you reading?” Dave waltzes over and snatches the papers right out of Rose’s hands. “How to not be a flighty broad?”  He looks over the first page and snorts.

“In other news,” Dave quips. “Water is wet.” He shoves the offending file back into Rose’s chest, then sets himself on the task of emptying the grocery bags onto the counter.

“What’s got you in such a good mood?” You ask him. Dave being happy is kind of weird, considering he’s been so edgy for the past few days. He snapped at you yesterday when you left your Alternian dictionary out on the table. And the day before that, when you laughed a bit too hard at one of Karkat’s insults. And the day before that, when you--okay, basically he’s been snapping at you a lot.

“Can’t a guy just have a good day, Egbert? Is there a limit on the number of times I can be in a good mood? Will someone from the Happy Fun-time Embassy come to our apartment and beat the shit out of me for not being a frowny asshole today. ‘Hello, sir, you’ve exceeded your happiness quota. It seems I need to beat you with this Sadness Stick until you’ve returned to your rightful place in Frown Town. Now eat splinters, you piece of shit.’”

“Geez, geez, okay, Dave, I get it.” The lengthy metaphors are in full swing today--you never thought you’d be happy about that.

“No, I don’t think you do. In fact, I think I’m going to freestyle until you do.”

You haven’t mentally prepped yourself for this. Dave is good at rapping, just...his material can get really dense. Nonetheless, a rap session doesn’t sound fun right now.

Jesus Christ, he’s hitting the can against the counter to make a beat. Karkat can definitely hear that.

“John, come over here and keep this beat up--”

“Hey, Dave, can you try to keep it down? Karkat got one of his headaches again, I don’t want to piss him off.”

Any semblance of a good mood wipes itself from Dave’s voice. He freezes in place, letting the can in his hand drop to the counter with a bang.

“There you go again.”

You fold your arms. “What are you talking about?”

Dave yanks out another can from the bag in front of him and looks like he’s about to slam it on the table--but he catches himself and lightly sets it down instead. His hand lingers on it and he just stares down, refusing to look in your direction.

“With the mass-murdering gray guy with a stick up his ass. You’re babying him.”

 

Um?

 

“Am not!”

He scoffs. “Are too. It’s like daycare in here: you’re a fresh mom to the parenting scene and Karkat is your snooflebear mckooflkins.”

“Dave, what the hell is a snoofle--”

“You’re the mom whose kid everyone hates because, while momma may think he’s a sweetheart, in reality: he mauled Jimmy’s toys, drank all of the juice boxes, and beheaded all of the stuffed animals within a three mile radius of the daycare center.”

“I’m not following this really half-assed metaphor--”

His hands move up to rest on the top of his head, he looks about ready to rip his hair out. “You need to quit treating Karkat like some cutesy kitten you found on the street and more like the genocidal asshat he actually is.”

You outstretch your arms towards the ceiling in disbelief and in prayer--Lord, please give you patience to deal with Dave’s stupidity. Amen.

Your straightened arms move down to point at Dave and you whip your head around to look at the other blonde in the room. “Rose! Are you hearing this?” She shrugs.

You look at Jade next. “Jade! Do you get what he’s saying?” She looks nervously at the two of you, then continues stirring the pot on the stove.

That’s weird--Jade usually likes dealing with confrontation as soon as it pops up. Suddenly, you aren’t so sure that you’re right when you say, “I’m not babying Karkat, Dave!”

A single eyebrow raises above his shades, ruining his expressionless face. “Oh, really. Giving him a dark quiet closet to relax in whenever he gets a ‘headache.’ Letting him take your shit and build the next fucking Pyramid of Giza with it. Lowering your voice to not hurt his ears when he’s in another god damn room.” He counts off his fingers. “Let me remind you, you probably did all this is within the past ten minutes alone.”

You’re tempted to snatch his glasses off his face and stomp them to shards on the ground. “He’s just a kid! How are we going to get anything useful from him if he’s scared and abused on top of his amnesia!”

You step right into Dave’s personal bubble. “Huh? Did you think about that, Dave? Did you think that he would just magically get his memories back, no treatment necessary? He’s not even a full-grown troll, what damage can he do to us!” You watch Dave’s ears and cheeks go red as you stare up at him.

“I couldn’t give less of a shit if he were the troll equivalent of a baby with some terrible chronic diarrhea and had never laid a greasy talon on anyone in his pathetic life. He’s one of the aliens,” Dave gesticulates in Karkat’s general direction. “That ordered our families to get shot down. Stabbed. Murdered.”

You hear a door click shut--the girls must have left. They were probably able to sense this fight was about something more than you being nice to Karkat.

Dave takes you off guard and clamps down on your shoulder. You go stiff. You can see the outlines of his pupils boring straight into yours, trying to get you to understand.

What you’re supposed to be understanding, you’re not quite sure.

“For all you know, your pity project here could be BFFsies with the Alternian that hired the Noir to gun down your dad and Rose’s mom. It’s probably a similar deal with Bro.”

You feel a shiver run down your spine and creep its way into your chest. The unspoken contract--don’t talk about _them_ , don’t mention how, don’t even think about it--just got shredded by the rule’s main advocate.

You bite your lip and mentally cross your fingers that Dave doesn’t notice your eyes looking a bit shinier than usual. “Don’t you dare,” you say coldly. “Think that I don’t care about them because I’m talking to an Alternian. In fact, helping Karkat shows that currently, I care _more_.”

Dave releases your shoulders. His lips have warped into almost an n-shape. “Really.”

“Yeah, _really_. Because, instead of sitting on my ass and trying to dice things up with the shittiest sword in existence, I’m trying to get info that our families were willing to _die_ for.”

Dave is done. He grabs his phone and jacket off the table and stomps in the direction of the door. A part of you--the friendleader, the problem solver--wants to make him stay, wants to talk out the issue and go back to terrible jokes and innuendos.

Instead, you find yourself spitting, “You’re pathetic. You won’t do anything to avenge your own brother because you’re too scared of the aliens to actually interact with one.”

Dave halts at the doorway. He looks at you over his shoulder, and you hear the worst noise in the universe, a sound that makes your heart ache, something you have never heard before and you never want to hear again.

Dave Strider is crying because of you.

With a thick voice, Dave says, “So you’re going to replace me with some mass-murdering gray piece of shit whose only real value is in the ground and no longer breathing.”

You barely even realize what you say in response: “Just because you can’t accept the fact that I’ve realized that they aren’t bloodthirsty monsters 24/7 doesn’t mean you get to accuse me of things like not caring about my dad. Let’s be real, Karkat’s doing more to stop this war than you’ve _ever_ been brave enough to.”

There’s a sniff and then a slam.

Dave is gone.

You’re alone now, your only company being the pot of nutrition paste and questions of how you managed to fuck up one of your best friendships so badly.

 

* * *

 

 

Wailing sirens aren’t exactly your favorite alarm clock.

Your name is JOHN EGBERT, you are ELEVEN YEARS OLD, and you are TERRIFIED because sirens mean that there are ALTERNIANS within the city limits. LOTS OF ALTERNIANS.

You’re embarrassed at the high-pitched squeak that comes out of your mouth when your dad grabs your shoulder and starts helping you out of bed. “There’s no time to grab your stuff,” he tells you. “You’ve got to go straight down to the bunker.”

Jane is already awake, hands in the pockets of her fuzzy cyan bathrobe and wearing down her red bedroom slippers with all the pacing she’s doing.

Your dad wraps your respective dark blue bathrobe tightly around you, then walks you over to Jane. “Watch over your brother,” he says to her. “I’ll come find you as soon as we clean this up.”

He places a quick peck on each of your foreheads, then sends you down the apartment stairs and onto the dimly-lit street with the masses.

Your older sister knows exactly where to go. She fights the current of the crowd, keeping her fingers tightly interlocked with yours. Compared to the frantic cries of the people heading towards the civilian safehouses, Jane is stoic. Her mouth set in a hard line is the only sign that something is wrong.

[ ](http://gadreel-winchester.tumblr.com/image/92026409064)

Fourteen is such a young age to be so immune to fear. But the world Jane grew up in requires such immunity, and it’s the same world you’ll grow up in too.  

You don’t know that right now. All you’re thinking is, “who can I use as a human shield.”

You reach the chain link fence to the base and run parallel to its right side, in the direction of the waterfront. The only people allowed in the base right now are military personnel, but their families get a special, extra safe place to hide nearby.

You come to a crumbly plaster warehouse with a small crowd and a view of the military’s concrete airstrip out front. Even though you’ve been in here before, you’re kind of nervous about going in. The Alternians _could_ kill you, but what if the building collapses and beats them to it?

But Jane’s tugging on your hand to follow her, and your dad told you to come here. With a sigh, you file in behind the rest of the crowd.

The inside of the building does not match the outside. The main difference between the two is that inside there is a huge metal door, leading to a massive bunker.

Building it was one of the last things the government did before sealing off the entire city to the outside. The general public doesn’t know about what the warehouse hides--if they did, they would all come here instead of the public safehouses and there would be a frenzy. That would be awful for everyone, so a secret it stays.

Your sister holds you tightly in front of her as you shuffle past soldiers holding massive guns. They’re here to protect you. That doesn’t make them any less scary, though.

You step over the threshold of the bunker and into a spacious area lit only by red emergency lights. A few inches of metal block off all the doors, walls, and windows that used to be a part of this room. Hundreds of bunk beds, a dining area, and a walled off bathroom are what makes up your temporary home.

You follow the yellow tape lines on the concrete ground and walk with Jane to your assigned sleeping area. You get an idea and lightly tap Jane’s arm. She looks down at you and says, “Hmm?”

“Hehe, Jane. Follow the yellow tape road.” You sing in a hushed tone.

She smiles back at you but doesn’t say anything. You doubt she actually thought that was funny. You didn’t even think it was funny. She’s probably just smiling to make you feel better about this.

That’s what you were trying to do for her.

It’s not really working out for either of you.

You’re sitting on your bunk, watching your feet swing back and forth while Jane unpacks your complimentary supply kit when you first hear him.

“Dirk, c’mon. This jar is sacred. It’s a valuable item. People have literally died for this thing and you’re gonna make me leave it out here.”

You scout out the source of the voice--two blond boys, one of them about your age and the other could be Janey’s age. They must be siblings; it would be too big of a coincidence to have two shade-clad boys next to each other wearing tank tops printed with symbols that match those on their boxers. The taller one has significantly worse bedhead than his younger brother. It looks like they only heard the sirens and woke up a few minutes ago. They’re part of the last few people trickling in through the door. Actually, they’re holding up the line right now.

The short one has something grasped tightly in his arms--a jar. What’s floating in it, you’re not quite sure. As he glares up at his brother, you start getting nervous. Everyone needs to get in the bunker as quickly as possible. If they have to argue, why on earth can’t they move out of the way and let everyone else in?

The taller blond kid frowns. “Uh, yeah.”

“Why.”

“Because it’s freaking everyone out, Dave,” the older sibling says in probably the most smooth, logical voice you’ve heard from someone his age. “There are a bunch of little kids in here. Somehow, I don’t think having _that_ in here will make them any calmer.”

“But _Dirk_.”

“But _Dave_ ,” the tall one mocks. “I don’t care if it’s cool, you’re not going to scare everyone inside the bunker because you’re unhealthily attached to it.”

Dave looks down at the jar, then up at his brother. Up, down, up, down, up. “Will you pay insurance.”

Bedhead groans and messes up his hair even more. “Fine! Just put it outside the door, if it’s not there when we get out I’ll pay you back for it.” He starts heading into the bunker without waiting for his brother.

Dave shrugs, moving back and to the side. He doesn’t do a very good job of inconspicuously sticking the jar under his tank when he’s sure Dirk isn’t looking. Jar secured, he hooks his thumbs in the sides of his boxers and saunters in.

 

You hate him.

 

Your jaw unconsciously tenses when you realize that Dave’s not taking off his pointy shades, even in the near-darkness. Wow. Really, who wears sunglasses indoors? Like, even in brightly lit rooms, it’s dumb. It’s night time, why was he wearing them in the first place. If he trips, you’ll laugh.

Instead, he glides over to a bunk much closer to yours than you would like, about two rows away.

Jane left to go get some food. You go back to watching your swinging legs.

“Yo.”

You swing your legs faster.

“Yo, dude.”

Wow, you had no idea you could move your limbs so quickly. Fascinatin--

“Are you listening to me, man?”

At the rate your legs are moving, you could use them as the world’s first organic helicopter blades.

“You’re deaf, aren’t you? I don’t know ASL, but maybe we could do some fucked up version of charades or--”

You’re forced to actually acknowledge Dave. “Holy crap, dude, what do you want?”

“Oh, so you’re not deaf. Cool. Anyway, look at this Alternian hand I snuck in here.”

He shoves the jar in your direction and you leap off your bed in your hurry to stay away from it. “Dude! What the actual fuck!”

You feel a bit bad for cussing at him, but _who in their right mind keeps an Alternian hand in a glass container psychopaths that’s who_.

This kid apparently doesn’t know the basic rules of human interaction, because he sits on your bed and tries to shove it in your face.

“Get--OFF--” You counterattack by blindly slapping at his face, but it only makes him try harder. Your only reward for it are holes in your hand from his glasses.

The jar smushes your cheek and you tumble backwards onto your butt. You crack your eyes open a bit to be greeted with the sight of fluorescent green fluid and something dark bumping at the glass.

It’s a slightly darker color than a human hand could be. The fingers are more slender, the palms tinier. It’s covered in a layer of hair everywhere except on the palms, fingertips, and nail beds. You’re surprised to see that the nails aren’t claws--they look almost human, in reality.

You don’t know whether this is an actual Alternian hand--you’ve never seen one before. But somehow, this doesn’t seem scary enough. Or big enough.

You quit struggling, which, to your annoyance, makes Dave stop too.

“Bro,” he says. “What gives.”

You snatch the object from his hands. “Bro,” you mimick. “This isn’t a real Alternian hand.”

Dave rises off the bed and crosses his arms. “Yeah it is.”

“Who even gave you this? They obviously lied to you.”

Dave is trying to hit you in the face again. “I don’t even know your fucking name; you’re lucky I decided to show some ugly ass nerd like you something so much cooler than anything you’ll ever see again in your lifetime.”

You raise the jar just out of his reach--you’ve got height advantage, there’s no way he’s getting this fake crap back. You sneer at him at he jumps up and down, attempting to smack the item onto the ground. Ha.

“You’re such an idiot,” you say. “Everyone knows Alternians are enormous.”

“No, man, you’re so wrong. Holy shit, do you even know how wrong that statement was.”

“How do you know I’m wrong? Where’s your evidence?”

“It’s in an encyclopedia I left at home titled, ‘Shit That Assholes Like Some Random Kid You Try To Be Nice to in a Bunker Think is True.’”

“Even if it were an actual Alternian hand, how would showing it to a total stranger be classified as ‘being nice.’”

“Actually,” a silvery female voice chimes in, “you’re both wrong.”

Thank god. You’d recognize that voice anywhere.

“I mean, you’re both wrong in regard to what an Alternian looks like,” A few light footsteps echo behind you and then stop on your right side. “John was right about how showing a stranger an Alternian hand is not considered ‘being nice.’”

You turn your head down and to the right. “Hi, Rose!”

Rose looks freakishly good considering you all had to wake up in the dead of night and run down to the bunker. She’s basically the only person in the whole building whose hair isn’t maimed by bedhead. Her black bathrobe even looks like she ironed it before coming here, holy crap.

“Hello, John. Sorry it took so long to find you. I helped Roxy unpack our stuff.” She smiles up at you apologetically.

“Sup, nerd boy’s wife. Now tell me what stone cold motherfucking science you have to back up your analysis.”

Rose ignores Dave. “John,” she asks. “Who’s the imbecile wearing sunglasses inside and trying to argue with you?”

“Good question, Rose. I have no idea.”

One of the great things about Rose is that she really knows how to push people’s buttons. As you watch, your friend puts her hands on her hips and does a full body scan of Dave. Prolonged attention must make him uncomfortable--he tries to stare Rose down for a few seconds but soon afterwards is left to avoid eye contact by staring at a nearby wall. You cannot beat Rose Lalonde in a staredown. She’s simply the best there is.

You guys stand in silence for a good minute before she finishes her evaluation.

“Well,” she says, rewrapping her already perfectly-adjusted bathrobe around herself. “If he actually did his research before buying that for god knows how much money, he would know that the preserved hand in his jar is that of a monkey, and not an Alternian.”

Dave steps forward and looks like he’s about to argue back when yet another person joins your discussion.

“Yep, she’s right.” A voice sings from above. You all look up just in time to see a super tan girl hang her torso backwards over the edge of a top bunk, about three away from yours. How she doesn’t just fall off and faceplant, you’ll never know.

“My grandpa shot a monkey once! They used to be all over the place on other continents! He brought it home to North America and stuffed it, he does that with everything he shoots for game. Something about honoring the animal?”

Her toothy grin reminds you of a green-eyed version of the Chesire Cat from that Alice in Wonderland story. It’s unsettling to see someone smiling this much in these circumstances.

She pauses her tale to push her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, going crosseyed in the process. “Anyway, he put it in our living room and it’s been there ever since. So as someone who’s lived with a stuffed monkey her entire life, I can tell you,” she winks at Dave. “That you’ve been scammed by some lying scumbag.”

“I’m Jade, by the way.” She somersaults off the bed’s edge and successfully lands on her feet. Her hand extends toward you. “Nice to meet you!”

When you don’t immediately grab her hand, she initiates the shake by grabbing yours. Her grip is like a snake’s.

When she lets go of you and moves on to Rose, you stick your tongue out at Dave and thrust his dumb jar back at him.

He holds it in front of him like a shield. “Whatever. Sorry you infants got too fucking scared to accept the fact that I own a legit Alternian hand. Don’t come crying to me when an Alternian hunts you down and you’re stupid enough to call it a monkey.”

He storms off in the direction of the dining area. You search for his older brother so you can figure out where Dave is going and how you can best avoid him.

There he is, next to some tiny tan kid at a metallic table. They both have bags under their eyes and their smiles look forced as they chat. As you watch, the tan kid pinches a tuft of Dirk’s hair between his fingers and starts chuckling. The blond boy turns slightly redder under the emergency lights.

Jade follows your gaze. “Oh! I see my brother over there, I guess I should go see if he needs anything.” She does a little wave and then sprints after Dave. “Talk to you guys later!”

You and Rose are alone. You want to complain to her about how irritating that Dave kid is and how Jade seems pretty nice but she’s a little busy staring off into space right now. You shake your hands in front of her face.

“Rose. Earth to Rose. Come in Rose.”

She blinks twice, then starts rubbing at her eyes. “Give me a break, it’s two in the morning. What did I miss during my brief recess from the real world?”

Anything you say to her is cut off by the screeching of metal. They’re shutting the bunker door.

Which means that there are Alternians nearby.

All noise in the room ceases to exist. The red light overhead becomes more maroon when the door is completely shut. People silently move off to find their families, Rose included. You lower yourself onto the bed and hunch your shoulders. Any year now, Jane.

You have your knees pulled into your chest and you’re staring at the door when someone settles themselves at the other end of the bed. Your sister lightly wraps her left arm around you, and you lean into it.

Who cares if it’s lame to show familial affection, if you’re going to die here you’re going to die _hugging your sister gosh darn it_.

She picks at the collar of your robe and you both gaze wide-eyed at the entrance.

Yet after ten minutes, everyone is still quiet and not dead.

You thought that your death would be quicker, for some reason. A quick peek behind you shows that Roxy and Rose are reading with the light from a phone. Ahead, it looks like Dave and Dirk dozed off--they’re draped on top of each other, with Dirk’s arm resting on Dave’s head and the younger sibling dangling off the edge.

You cough. Jane starts up at the sudden noise, then nervously giggles when she realizes it was you. You do your best to mimic some playing cards. She doesn’t seem to get it, though--Janey has her head tilted. You pretend to shuffle up the imaginary cards, then deal them out. Still no comprende. Fine. You guess you get to be the person to break the silence.

“Do you want to--”

 

BANG.

 

Jane all but slaps you in the face while she shushes you.

 

BANG.

 

You start holding your breath.

 

BANG. POW. CLANG.

 

It sounds like someone is shooting outside.

 

P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-BANG-POW-POW-BANG.

 

Even Rose looks unsettled.

 

BANG.

 

Under different circumstances, you would laugh at Dave clutching on to his brother’s shirt for dear life.

 

BANG. CLANG--POW.

 

But considering you’re doing the same exact thing, you’ll give him a pass.

 

P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-POW.

 

POW.

 

Somehow, sitting in silence is worse than hearing the banging.

At least before you could tell what was out there.

Now you're left to wait and see what comes inside first.

 

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIK.

 

Hey, the door isn't being gunned down; that's a good sign.

Instead, it slowly opens. You let go of that breath you've been holding--it has to be humans freeing you guys, Alternians would just rip the door off its hinges.

It’s still night time. What felt like a lifetime was really only an hour or two.

The crackle of an intercom echoes overhead.

“Attention, citizens. The Alternian threat has been handled. Please return to your homes and do not leave them until 8 in the morning. This is for your safety as soldiers make secondary rounds throughout the city. Thank you for your cooperation.”

People are chattering before the announcement is even over. It feels wrong. Do none of these people remember they could have died a few minutes ago? Did this whole thing really mean so little to them?

“Come along, John.” Jane murmurs, so quiet compared to all the people around you. “Dad will join us at home. We don’t want to get stuck at the back of the line, either.”

She takes your hand and helps you up. You’re grateful she’s not trying to play this off as normal. That would mess you up more than if everyone were screaming and crying.

You make it to the front of the herd gathered at the entrance. A soldier, fully dressed with his helmet and gun, shouts to be heard over the din. He sounds tired. You don’t blame him--you didn’t even shoot anything and you’re ready to sleep for a decade. “Be aware that there are some bodies up ahead! We haven’t been able to clean up because our orders were to get you home as quickly as possible. Cover your eyes if it’s too graphic for you.”

No one covers their eyes. The announcement barely reaches your ears.

As soon as you step over the threshold, your foot slides on something wet and you’re catapulted into Jane’s back. She yelps in protest and catches herself on the person in front of her, who turns around to give you two an irritated glare. Well, _sooooorrrrrryyyyy_ , it’s all your fault that the floor is slippery. You’re tempted to blow raspberries at her but the lightning bolts Jane is shooting at you with her eyes is warning you otherwise. You settle for looking at the bottom of your slipper to figure out what you slipped on.

Your initial reaction is _gross, did I step in throw up?_ The mystery liquid is yellow, with a little hint of green. These slippers are going in the sink when you get home. You decide to watch the ground to avoid any more slipping--everyone is tired and angry so any more accidental shoving would probably tip them over the edge.

Soon you’re not just hopping over vomit--there are pools of all sorts of nasty stuff here. You’re not quite sure where all this crap came from or what it is, but the last thing you want to do is place your feet in it. It comes in a bunch of different colors too. Orange, olive, yellow--it’s only when you see red that you realize something is wrong. The stream of red trails off into the shadows in the side of the entry hallway, up to. Oh god.

 

When the soldier warned you about the bodies, you didn’t even register the fact that there were _dead_ people _ahead_.

A _corpse_? In _public_? What? _No_?

This is _Seattle_. This place is _civilized_. The dead belong in crematoriums, not where people can see them.

Yet here they are. It’s obvious the soldiers did the best they could in the little amount of time they had to tidy up. The bodies are piled up in the shadows, with a few stray hands and feet sticking out from the darkness. You would have to squint in order to see them from the line. There are two stacks; the one covered with a sheet is the human one, you’re guessing. Humans get dignity in death. Trolls...not so much.

The particular pool of red you were tracking leads to a pile of bent gray limbs and three-mile stares. The pools of their eyes seem to glow orange in the darkness, latched directly onto you. Some of them look about adult-sized but the similarities end there. Their facial features are contorted into a wide variety of snarls and growls.

Fangs of all sizes. Claws of all lengths and degrees of sharpness. Horns that could shish kebab a man. Bullet wounds of all colors.

You weren’t stepping in vomit earlier. That was blood and gore.

You think you’re going to be sick.

Suddenly, your view is blocked by a camo uniform. “Hey, kid. You need to get moving.” A wrinkled face squats down into your vision. “It’s time to go home.”

You didn’t even realize you had stopped walking. He lightly nudges you back into the crowd, where you see Jane slowly edging along, checking surrounding faces for you.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” the man says from behind you. His voice has gone soft in sympathy--no, probably empathy. He sees these killers basically every day, they don’t scare him anymore. “Try your best to forget it.”

When you make it back to Jane, she scolds you for running off. Always playing the part of fill-in mom. You zone her out.

You just want to get home and see your dad is all right and get under your covers and go to sleep and wake up tomorrow to see that this has all been one big dream and that no one died tonight and that your city isn’t constantly under siege by aliens for seemingly no reason and that humans are the only lifeforms in the universe and that everyone and everything you love isn’t at risk of being ripped to shreds by gray monsters that you can do nothing about.

You’re rounding the corner on to the main street when Jane tells you to be careful--there’s some broken glass on the ground.

Further inspection reveals that it’s the remains of a jar and the frames of some triangular shades. Thrown nearby is a small hairy hand with a few glass fragments embedded in it.

You kick the hand bitterly as you pass and resolve to ask your dad to get you new slippers.

 

***

 

A week goes by. Life goes back to normal. Your dad works every day. Your sister has specialized training. You go to your classes.

The whole incident is almost forgotten--almost. There’s a constant nagging sensation at the back of your head, one that you try to shove back every time you acknowledge it.

_What if they get in again? They killed soldiers with guns, what’s stopping them from killing you? Your dad? Your sister? Their claws. The fangs. That… vacant stare. How can something so deadly and evil bleed such nice colors?_

You happen to be pushing back some of these questions when the doorbell rings.

It’s Saturday evening. Your dad and sister aren’t home; for them, work is every day except Sunday. You drop the wooden spoon you were using to make mac and cheese and open the front door.

The last person you were expecting to see standing on your doorstep was Dave.

You close the door in his face.

Haha, let’s forget that idiot somehow found out your address. Where were you? Oh yeah, mac and cheese. Ah, mac and cheese. Man’s best frie--oh gosh darn it.

You crack open the door. “What do you want and how did you find me.”

Dave is slouching with his hands in the pocket of his oversized red hoodie, refusing to look directly at you. His face looks weird without shades. They suited him. Somehow, they made his face more expressive. Now he just looks tired. You saw his glasses in pieces on the ground, but now you want to know why.

“You’re so welcoming,” he pans. “Can you let me inside first and then I’ll explain myself.”

You narrow your eyes. “How do I know you aren’t holding a knife or something?”

He facepalms. “Holy shit, dude,” he exasperates. “You pissed me off so fucking much at the bunker that I decided to seek vengeance. Damn you and your short vampire-looking sidekick for being able to tell that my ‘Alternian’ was actually a very very very distant cousin of yours. I followed you home, you son of a bitch. My blade of justice has been craving your blood for a week now--”

“Dave, just shut up and come inside.”

He looks you square in the eye, and only now do you notice that they’re tinted weirdly. Are they… are they _red_? Oh man, this is probably why he wore those shades in the bunker. Guilt sucker punches you in the gut.

As he steps through the entrance, he remarks: “I never told you my name.”

Oh, oops. You nervously chuckle.

“You and your brother were arguing so loudly when you came in that it was hard NOT to notice you. He only shouted your name angrily like, seven times.”

He sighs. “That’s Dirk, for you. Always trying to be ‘noble and heroic.’” He makes finger quotation marks. ‘I can’t tell if it’s out of a genuine sense of morality, or to look good in front of that boy he fawns over every fuckin’ day.”

He starts laughing. “Dude, speaking of which, the funniest shit happened. The guy he likes was talking to him at the bunker and said he looked cute with bedhead. So guess what he started doing?” You just gaze at him from where you’re perched on the sofa arm and say nothing.

“Dirk started messing up his hair every morning and gelling it so it looks like he always has bedhead! I asked him about it and he was all, ‘No, man, I just think it looks better this way.’ I’m calling bullshit. A big, steamy pile of bullshit. Fresh from the steer itself.”

You sigh. “This isn’t what you came here to talk about, is it?”

Dave deflates; his shoulders slump and he heaves a twin sigh to your own. “Yeah.”

You motion for him to come sit next to you on the couch, but he shakes his head and awkwardly stands in front of you instead. He doesn’t look like he’s going to start talking without some prompting, so you take it upon yourself to get this conversation rolling.

“Let’s start out easy. How did you find out where I live?”

“Dirk, my bro. Your BFFL in crime, hobbit girl, looked like one of Dirk’s friends. I think it’s a chick named Roxy? Yeah, and so Dirk knows Roxy, and Roxy knows your older sister, Jamie.”

“Jamie?”

“That’s what Roxy said.”

“I think you mean ‘Janey.’ And technically it’s not even that, Janey is just Roxy’s nickname for her. Geez, Dave, do your homework.”

“Shut the fuck up. I found you off of a hunch, I did more than enough homework. The teacher is softly weeping in the corner of her classroom, her sole purpose was to torture kids by nagging them to do their homework, and I went and ruined it.”

You roll your eyes. “Okay, whatever, forget about it. So Roxy just handed out my address to you?”

“Yeah, she was pumped because she thought that it was so cute that you were making a new friend,” he explains, his arm moving to rub at his neck. “I may have lied and told her we were friends, by the way. That’s probably useful information to know.”

Darn Roxy and her good intentions.

“You better get ready for her to hunt you down then,” you say. “Because I’m going to tell her we’re not friends. When she finds out you lied to her, you’re a dead man.”

“Aw, now come on. I’m not scared of some short chick. She could kick me in the shins a few times but what damage could that do? Nah, what _really_ makes me wanna shit my pants are the Alternians.”

Your attempts to defend Rox stop as soon as he says ‘Alternians.’ Is he being serious right now? Like, really? He hunted you down just to talk about a fear literally everyone in this city has?

“Well, yeah. I did,” he says.  “And I am being serious. If it helps, imagine me holding a briefcase and wearing a fedora or something. That stuff is pretty serious. ”

Oops. You must have said all that stuff before out loud. Well, at least he knows how you feel about this.

“And no, I don’t think it’s a fear everyone in the city has. I would elaborate, but I think you noticed all by your big boy self,” he drawls, stretching out the last words. “Didn’t ya?”

You should be creeped out by how much Dave knows, but all you feel is an overwhelming sense of relief. So someone else IS freaked out by the Alternians! Of course it had to be Dave, the kid you hated upon first sighting. But it’s someone, nonetheless!

If anyone else in the bunker was too, they sure did a good job of hiding it.

You can feel the blond’s eyes on you as you scratch at the sofa arm. “Everyone else acted like the whole thing was so...normal. Like we _weren’t_ 3 inches of steel away from getting clawed to death.”

Dave nods along, his expression reads _preach_.

Yeah! Are people really that dumb! They could die at any point on any day, and they just pretend that everything is normal and there aren’t murderous aliens trying to kill everyone! This is wrong, you and Dave are the only sane ones--

Wait a second. Why are you agreeing with this jerkwad. Why is this jerkwad talking to you in particular about this. He has a brother, why isn’t he complaining to him.

“Hey. Why aren’t you talking to Dirk about this. He’s your brother, I’m just some random kid you annoyed at the bunker.”

“I can’t tell Dirk, because then he’ll tell Bro. Bro is all into this survival-of-the-fittest Darwin shit. And BOY does he want the Strider line to survive,” He starts pacing back and forth, your head turns to follow him. “Sword fights. Every week, if not every day. Bugged plushies all over the apartment. Find the camera if you want any privacy. _Pissing in my fucking juice._ Now we test our food before eating.”

You don’t like the sound of this Bro fellow.

Dave’s fists clench. “If he sees weakness, he snubs it. And being scared is definitely a weakness.”

“No it isn’t,” you snap. “It’s called being smart. There are plenty of idiots out there willing to throw themselves at an Alternian ‘for the sake of the human race.’ But only some people are smart enough to realize that: one, these things will kill you and two, you’re no good to anyone if you’re dead.”

Dave stops pacing .”That was pretty deep, dude.”

“I try.”

Pacing resumes. “So, I’m trying to get over this fear and I figured, ‘Hey. Y’know, that nerd kid looked pretty scared, too. Maybe I can do some charity and help him out as well.’”

“Yeah, about that. Just. Why are you talking to _me_ about it? We didn’t exactly part as amigos. Don’t you have friends?”

Dave’s poker face is out in full force, his red eyes more glaringly obvious than ever. “John,” he says. “How many kids do you know that would want to be friends with a mutated guy obsessed with preserved dead things who doesn’t know how to stop talking? ”

Ouch. You don’t want to feel bad for him...but you get where he’s coming from. Other kids your age aren’t exactly easy to befriend.

You would certainly know. Rose is the only person you can absolutely positively call your friend. Everyone else feels kind of like acquaintances--you know each other’s names and interests and families.

But you haven’t really connected with many people and found out their full stories. Who cares about who’s dating whom, or the latest class rankings, or whether it’s cooler to wear black socks or white ones.

You want to get straight to the inside jokes, the contemplating the meaning of life at 2AM and deciding it’s brownies, the yelling at each other when you’re being jerks but coming out of it as better friends and better people. You want to skip the intro and get into the good stuff.

Your pursuit of friendship is halted for today because Dave isn’t done using you as a therapist quite yet.

“People have seen my eyes and literally called me ‘the unholy offspring of Satan himself.’ I mean, not that I’m NOT honored by that title. It’s every eleven-year-old’s dream. But sometimes it gets a little tiresome. Hence, I wear my shades around all the time. Dirk gave them to me. It’s a habit. I would be wearing them right now, actually, if Dirk hadn’t been a dick and had actually paid me some money he promised me. Fuck my temper right in the ass.”

Wow. When he said he didn’t know how to stop talking, he wasn’t kidding.

“I kind of have this other weird habit. If I see a potential friend, I just throw myself at them. It’s not something I can control; I’ll just spot some kid about my age sitting there and my legs will automatically drag me over and my mouth does its job of making me look as dumb as fucking possible. It’s a finetuned system and I drive off any friend suitors within minutes. I’m so thirsty, man. Thirsty for friendship.”

You make a show of stroking an imaginary beard. “You know,” you muse. “If you stopped being such a mean guy all the time, you could potentially have one friend. Or two, if you work hard at it.”

He snorts. “Based on how you acted to me, I don’t know if I want to accept that offer. You’re kind of a dick.”

“Hey! Jerk-mode isn’t my default setting!”

“King Dick.”

“Dave!”

“All hail.”

“I’m not--”

“Accept your scepter, your Erectness.”

“Maybe you don’t have friends because you’re such a perv!”

You’re surprised at how easily the conversation is flowing. He’s totally different than the kid that tried to shove an Alternian hand in your face. Is it because it’s not two in the morning? Is it because he decided to fix up his attitude?

Who knows. But maybe your first impression of him was wrong.

Dave doesn’t look so exhausted anymore--his slight frown has been swapped out with a slight smile. “Where were we. Oh, yeah. Generally, I don’t give potential friends second shots. Annoying them once is enough, you know?”

You don’t know. But you nod in understanding anyways.

“But you like, were fun to irritate,” you point towards the door, _get out_. He puts his arms out and palms forward, _whoa hear me out_. “Because you didn’t put up with my shit. As soon as I walked over, you shut me down. You’re the ideal person to tell me whether or not this is a rational fear or if I’m a huge baby disguised as a preteen boy.”

That’s some strange logic Dave has there, but you guess it _does_ make sense.

“No, Dave, you’re definitely a baby disguised as a preteen boy. But not for that reason. If anything, you’re being smarter than like 90% of the population when you admit you’re scared.”

“Swoon. Finally, someone that can appreciate my brains and not just my beauty.”

“Hey, that doesn’t upgrade you from baby status. What kind of a person just goes up to other kids and shoves detached hands in their faces?”

He starts saying something about “sharing is caring” but then stops mid-sentence and sniffs.

“Is something burning?”

“My mac and cheese!” You bound over to the kitchen and frantically fuss with the heat knobs.

Dave casually strolls in behind you and leans over your shoulder to observe the charred mess in the pot. “Dude, you fucked up big time. That looks like total shit.”

“You don’t have a brain censor, do you. You cuss like literally every sentence.”

“Fuck you. This is fucking America. I can do what I fucking want, you glasses-clad douchewad McFuckerson Shitface.”

A throat clears itself from next to the door. You pivot around to see your dad raising his eyebrows at your guest. Oh, he's home from work! His tilted business hat and stiff stance radiates disapproval. Haha, um.

“Urgh. Sorry, Dad. This is Dave, he’s...got a wide vocabulary.”

Lucky for Dave, your Dad doesn’t hold grudges, especially over small things like cursing. Manners win out and the man of the house snatches Dave’s unwilling hand and nearly rips his arm out of its socket. “Nice to meet you, young man. I hope John has been a good host during your visit to our home.”

Dave looks lost and gives you a questioning stare as his hand is flung up and down. “Uh, nice to meet you, too, sir. He’s been an excellent host, the best, ten out of ten.”

Dad finally lets go of Dave, who tries to shake it out behind his back.

“John,” your dad says. “Have you offered for your friend to stay for dinner? It’s almost 7, and I’m sure his family will not mind.”

You don’t correct his usage of the word ‘friend.’

“If Dave is willing to stick around for me to make a new pot of mac and cheese, then sure! Do you want to stay for dinner?”

“Make me mac and cheese and I am yours.” Dave deadpans.

“Okay, sounds good! Do you need to call Bro or--”

“Nah, he’ll be fine.”

Well then. As you walk by Dave to empty out the charred noodles, you breathe, “Pee-free food.”

“Fu--. I mean, frick off.”

 

***

 

And that’s pretty much how it happened.

The whole deal was solidified as “friendship” when you bestowed upon him a new pair of aviators for his 12th birthday three months later, which he deemed “hella rad.”

You didn’t have any classes together, so you would have to wait until after school to chat. For the first month, you mainly talked about Alternians. What they looked like, their average strength, what you would do if one broke into the city and the bunkers weren’t safe.

But there is only so much one can say about the Alternians. Gradually, the conversations shifted from troll weak points to how it irked you that your dad smothered you so much, or how Bro’s parenting method should’ve gotten Dave killed years ago. Dave started coming to your apartment almost everyday after school, rather than once a week. You never went to his apartment--he always came to you.

Complaining about life was different with Dave. Rose always had to get down to the root of the issue, digging in with ‘ _and how does that make you feel?_ ’ and ‘ _can you think of any memories that might be making you feel this way?_ ’

When you complain with Dave, it’s just a mutual feeling of  “ _that sucks, dude._ ”

And sometimes, that’s what you really needed. Some issues just stay around forever. Not every problem can be solved, even with a 11-year-old therapist-to-be.

Rose did drop in a good deal of the time. Sometimes it was to just sit on the couch and read a book while you and Dave wrestled, other days she would join in your arguments about stupid stuff and blow Dave away with her sass. Either way, the two established a snarky and sarcasm-filled friendship full of one upmanship and schoolyard memes. (Rose wasn’t into memes until Dave showed up… You can’t tell if the change is for better or worse.)

You were the unholy trio. When you walked down the streets alone, your neighbors would ask where the other two were. You started making afternoon snacks for four people: yourself, Rose, and two for Dave because wow that kid could eat a lot and still be stick-like. Life was good.

When Dirk caught wind of Dave’s visits, he jumped on the opportunity. One day, as you fiddle with the TV in the living room, Dave bursts in muttering curses. You ask him what’s up.

“Fuckin’ Dirk, man. He found out I was hanging out with a few other kids and now he’s using it to get that boy, Jake. Y’know, the one that got him to do the bedhead thing?”

“I don’t understand...are Dirk and his crush coming over to hang out too, or--”

“Don’t be fucking ridiculous, Egbert. No, Jake has a little sister. We get to play babysitting services while Dirk and Bootyshorts Boy Wonder make out in the park.”

That is. Really. Uncool of Dirk, wow, you expected better from him. He seemed like an okay kind of guy, too. What happens if the kid chokes on an electrical cord or something? You struggle with putting on a bandaid sometimes!

“How little is she?” You question.

“I don’t know, like 7.9 or something. I hope you know how to change a diaper, bro.”

“Dave,” Rose calls from the couch. “Something tells me you’re overreacting a bit. How about you start by telling us her name?”

He scratches the side of his head. “Jude. We have to be as irritating as possible, she has to hate us after today--”

There’s a knock on the door. Aw man. Let the babysitting commence.

Your dad would kill you if he found out you made a bad first impression, so you’re gonna ignore Dave’s advice. Crossed fingers that Dirk will pay you after a while.

The hyper girl from the bunker all those months ago is on your front doorstep. What.

“Jude?!”

She looks just as shocked as you feel, all wide eyes and raised eyebrows. Her hands twist themselves in the sides of her full length skirt. “Hello? You’re one letter off, I’m Jade. I recognize you, but I don’t remember from where! Help a girl out?”

You give yourself a mental notice to punch Dave when you get a chance. He told you you were watching an eight year old!

“Uh, I’m John. You talked to me a little during that Alternian raid a few months ago, in the bunker. Remember?”

You can almost see the light bulb that flicks on over her head as she snaps her fingers. “Oh, yeah! Hi, John! It’s good seeing you again, even if the circumstances are a little odd. Could I come in?”

“Sure.” You beckon her forward and she steps past you.

This is…. Unexpected. Better than watching a little kid, though.

You can hear her squealing as she meets up with Dave and Rose in the living room. You walk in on the tail end of Dave saying, “Okay, maybe it _wasn’t_ an Alternian hand. You were right about that. But it was still pretty cool looking.”

She giggles a bit. “Only the coolest for you, _dude!_ ” Jade over-enunciates the ‘dude’ making it 500% more dorky and 500% more adorable compared to when Dave says it. Um. Yeah. Moving on.

“So…” you trail off. “I’m guessing that Jake is your brother.”

“Yep! It’s hard to see the resemblance sometimes, but we are related!”

“Yeah, really,” You shoot a questioning look at Strider. “Dude, how long have you known Jake now? Like, a year? And you never met his sister?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t want to meet my future in-laws quite yet. Yeesh. Cut a guy some slack.”

Jade smacks her forehead as Dave talks. “Oh! You must be Dirk’s brother! I don’t know how I didn’t pick up on that before, usually I’m pretty good at guessing this kind of stuff.” She does a suggestive eyebrow wiggle which doesn’t quite match her goofy smile. “So. When are they gonna get hitched?”

You can tell that Dave is rolling his eyes behind his shades. “Really, though. They’ve gotten far enough along that they’re willing to dump you here with no regrets, that’s probably a good indication that it’ll be soon. I would say you can be flower girl but I’ve already got dibs, so.”

“About that ‘getting dumped here’ bit,” Jade says. “Sorry, John, for just butting in here. I hope I’m not causing trouble. My grandpa just doesn’t like me being at home by myself without a gun at hand, and since that’s illegal for someone my age….here I am!”

You were initially angry that you would have someone else getting in the way of your trio. But now that Jade is actually here…. You enjoy talking to her! Jade is really nice and interesting!

That seems to be the general consensus anyway. Dave is having a good time chatting with her, and although Rose hasn’t said much, she looks like she would appreciate another girl around.

You’ll give her a shot.

 

***

 

By the end of your first year knowing Dave, you don’t talk about Alternians anymore.

But the fear remains.

And only now are you finding out that a friendship founded from fear is bound to go rotten.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bootyshorts boy wonder™ lauren
> 
> i know that dave doesn’t get his shades until his 13th birthday technically but f you their friendship couldn’t wait that long
> 
> and geez john dave is cry cuz of u
> 
> the usual-- my homestuck tumblr: wizord-of-oz.tumblr.com  
> my sister/proofreader/illustrator: harehollows.tumblr.com
> 
> the last four weeks have been a little crazy and i had some serious writer's block... i hope the extra long chapter made up for it! i may consider taking more time between chapters and writing longer chapters instead, but unless a few of you guys request that i'll be sticking to my usual posting format--a short one every 1 or 2 weeks.
> 
> thanks for reading, commenting, giving kudos, and subscribing!
> 
> EDIT: 100! kudos! wow! thank! you!
> 
> EDIT ME UP, SCOTTY: haha well looks like a) i'm going to have another pretty long chapter and b) a combo of writers block and overpacked schedule again. so, it'll probably take 4 weeks again. sorry.
> 
> AN ABUNDANCE OF EDITS: my sister got her tablet back so now we have art! expect another pic for this chapter, since it's so freakin' long. and the next chapter is about 2/3 of the way through, it'll probably get posted early this week!
> 
> THIS IS A PREPOSTEROUS NUMBER OF EDITS: ok. i have no excuse. the next chapter is more done than not, i'm just having difficulty connecting the scenes and i'm being a pissbaby about characterization. if the chapter isn't posted by wednesday feel free to break out the pitchforks cuz at that point i'll deserve it.


	8. YOUR FRIENDS ARE ALL DOUCHES.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which dave becomes an angsty lil shit
> 
> HAHA this took way too long but at least it's from a different character's POV right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psst may i suggest listening to this track when dave gets to the gym: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ers8Am26Xl8&feature=kp (it's dubstep)
> 
> it's what i listened to as i wrote that part, and it makes reading the whole thing a lot more entertaining. if you time it right, the line "the music stops" should happen around 3:50!

**====== >YOUR FRIENDS ARE ALL DOUCHES.**

 

You like to think you’re a cool guy.

Your clothes are cool, your music is cool, your fighting skills are cool. Everything about you has been perfectly calculated to emanate “cool” from every pore of your smokin’ bod.

Your friends should be cool by extension, right?

Wrong.

Turns out that all of your friends are two-faced backstabbers, not only to you, but to all of humanity. Go figure.

You’re prone to making bad choices, but you didn’t think you could fuck up _this_ badly.

Your name is DAVE STRIDER, and you are HELLA PISSED.

Not that anyone can tell. Your emotions are a goddamn enigma that’s wrapped in a secret and locked inside a vault, as far as anyone else is concerned. No, your anger is the silent and controlled kind. It sets your throat on fire, roasts your internal organs, boils your blood. But the key point is: it’s all contained within.

People often think that the shades are central to the whole indifferent stare, but anyone that has seen your face without them know that’s a bunch of bullshit. It’s actually kind of insulting for them to think that. You didn’t spend years watching Bro pokerface everything for people to speculate that your glasses did all the work.

All those years of training are what’s currently keeping you from shooting fire from your eyes and burning down Seattle like pyknic Godzilla after inhaling ten thousand pounds of jalapeños.

The city might as well be on fire, based on the highly illegal and definitely suicidal actions of your former BBFsies.

It’s 8 o’ clock, you’re starving, and you’re sure as hell not going back to your apartment. You would ask to crash at the older kids’ place, but then they would ask for an explanation which you currently don’t have. _So what brings you to Casa de Elder Siblings, Dave?_ Oh, nothing. Just your best friends keepin’ a secret from the central gov, no biggie. So do you guys have guac or?

Maybe you should just stomp around the streets the entire night like some insomniatic hobo and count your footsteps.

Step. How could they find a fucking murder machine and not kill it.

Step. How could they keep a murder machine in your apartment.

Step. How could they prefer a murder machine over you.

Step. True, Rose and Jade pulled a Switzerland during that whole argument.

Step. But staying neutral is as good as siding with John.

As the sidewalk goes from slate colored to pristine white, you realize that you’ve made your way over to the base.

Good. You want to slice stuff to shreds. Preferably something gray.

It’s past working hours. Wendy has gone home for the day, so the voice that greets you over the gate intercom is that of a night security guard’s. You skip the pleasantries and places your ID in front of the camera.

Beep. You’re in.

The hallway lights are only half-on. You’re faced with the age old question: You can keep the shades and risk tripping like a stoner, or take them off and have passersby think you’re possessed by Satan. Hm. Shades on, it is. Besides, you’re not sure if your eyes look semi-normal quite yet after their brief sweat session. You gotta give them some cool down after bench pressing all of Egbert’s lies.

There aren’t many people here to throw holy water at you, though. This place usually is pretty quiet, but you could probably hear a fly let one rip in here. Every sane/non-kiss-ass employee has left and are probably laughing over salads like goddamn memers at home or something equally asinine.

Regardless, they have no clue that their lives could--and probably are going to--be thrown down the shitter by an alien juvenile.

Not just any sword will do right now. Oh, no. You’ve got to head down to Weapons Development and get something special just for this occasion. Maybe something that hurls missiles. Or conjures not-shitty friends.

 

***

 

“Yo. Abhay. I need a cool sword to dice shit up with.”

The middle-aged Indian man slumped over the metal workbench starts up, pushing back his chair and blindly searching for a weapon--he thinks he’s under attack. You look down at him, motionless, as he thrashes through stuff on the table for half a second with no success. He gives up and takes up the shittiest battle stance you’ve seen. All his weight is on the back of his heels; you could probably just push him over if you wanted.

What a spazz.

You snatch the black pistol with yellow accents on the workbench and hold it out for him. He stares for a second, then cautiously accepts it.

“Yeah, I knew that was there. I just wanted to brush up on my hand-to-hand combat a bit. If I had gotten the gun out, you would be dead right now. Well. If that wasn’t illegal.”

“Sure.”

If you want Abhay Rastogi to even come close to shooting something, you have to give him a still target and four rounds of ammo. He wouldn’t get it until the second to last bullet. He says it’s because his circle-framed glasses are the wrong prescription, but you doubt that. He’s the anti-Jade of guns; she’ll nail a moving enemy right through the eyeball, but give _him_ a gun and you better gift him a bulletproof vest to go with it--he’d accidentally pop a cap up his own ass, kind of like the world’s shittiest rapper.

“Can I ask why you’re here so late, Dave?” he asks as he places his pistol back on the table.

“No.”

You’ll pass on all the “how are you’s” and “omg ur t-shirt looks so kewl” friendly person garbage; you just want to get straight to the gym with a brand new sharp piece of metal and murder some dummies. Lucky for you, Abhay isn’t one to push. Even if he were, you could just shoot his question right back at him.

“You got a little--” you motion at his hair, which is currently housing little tubes of metal. “Are those bullet casings? Holy shit, Abhay, you need to go home and get some sleep.”

Rather than picking out the bullet shells, your weapons expert whips his black shoulder-length hair around, fucked up ancient rockstar style. You blink as one pings against your shades. Once he finishes, he starts tying his hair back in a low ponytail.

“I can’t. Dirk has too many requests and special assignments, I’m helping out. Cindy from Strategics asked for some brass knuckles after she ‘busted her hand open while punching out an Alternian on the street,’” he lowers his eyebrows doubtfully, “Jade is working on some new gun, and don’t even get me started with what the base itself is asking for.”

“What, are they all due this week, or?”

“Nah, I’ve got like, two months.”

Okay, good, this is self-inflicted torture. Your brother being a dick and making Abhay do all his work would anger you even more, if that’s even possible at this point. That, and the fact that Abhay’s weapon-making skills aren’t quite as… _refined_ as Dirk’s. Some soldier would perish at the hands of an Alternian because their new gun’s crank handle didn’t work--and it would be your brother’s fault for not checking.

“I’m just trying to get on the management’s good side, y’know?” he continues. “Maybe finishing early will get me out of _here_ and on the field a bit faster. The more people fighting, the sooner the war ends, right?”

“Well, gee willickers, my heart just done swole up the size of the Grinch’s on fucking Christmas morning out of sympathy for you,” you drawl. “Now give me a cool sword.”

You aren’t in the mood for a pity party over Abhay’s inability to shoot something and get on the field like he wants. You’re fully aware you’re being a douche. Boohoo. Slap a fedora on you and call you a friendzone freak, because nice guys finish last. In life, that is.

He doesn’t comment back, just gives you an annoyed glare. He’s used to your shit by now. Ponytail complete, the man dusts off his bright yellow t-shirt (it says “caution” on it, pfff, as if) and starts picking his way through the maze they call the Weapons Lab. How someone doesn’t get killed on a regular basis in this shithole, you’ll never know. For making highly dangerous weapons of mass destruction that could go off at any time, the lab looks like a hoarder’s house. You’d think that the higher-ups would say something about this, but, well…no. They don’t have time for employee safety, it’s the city’s safety as a whole that they’re concerned about.

Abhay’s heading towards the wall of shelves in the back of the room. As he takes a big step over what looks like a grenade launcher, he asks, “Does Jake know you’re here?”

“No, and let’s keep it that way.”

You don’t need Jake on your ass about this. He would ask you why you came here so late, why you decided to practice with a different sword than usual, yadda yadda yadda. You can just see yourself showing up for training, and then his hoity toity British ass would come in and sniff out your half-baked lies like a puny basset hound. Your secret is pretty meaty. It wouldn’t be hard for him to pick up on it.

Abhay starts rifling through shit on the shelf in front of him, and you start looking at the stuff on other shelves. The shelf to the left has a sheet covering it. Something hilt-like is poking out from under it. Hm. You kick your way through the junk on the floor and are about to rip off the sheet when--

“WHOA THERE.” The weapons developer flings himself between you and the rack. “No touchie. No. Top secret. No Daves allowed. Dirk says you can’t see this yet.”

You put your hands out, palms forward. Fine. Not sketchy AT ALL. You’ll just sneak in here later and uncover it. No biggie.

Abhay gives you a wary look, then walks back over to the shelf he was originally looking over. He moves some more stuff, then picks up something long off of it and holds the handle out for you. It’s a multicolored mess--the handle is covered like ten different sections of taping, each a different gaudy color. You’re glad that whoever made this went into weapons and NOT the fashion industry. You take the handle from Rastogi.

“This is something Dirk has been developing. He said he wanted it tested, so he might actually appreciate you trying it out.”

A second’s worth of observation and you determine that it’s, yes: A katana. Of fucking course. They have almost no practicality on the battlefield--getting in that 3.5 foot radius to take a poke would mean getting your dick clawed off. But your old custodial…manchild used one for god knows why, so Dirk basically has a fetish for them now.

You prefer a good ol’ medieval-esque sword, but you can manage with a katana. Especially a cool one.

You lightly bounce the handle from palm to palm, getting a feel for the weight. It’s surprisingly light--Dirk’s weapons are generally full of a bunch of gadgets that make it weigh a quadruple fuckton. Did he skip all that jazz and get straight to the sword, or?

“His focus in developing this was getting in all of his favorite features, but minus the weight that comes with it.”

“Wait, so this thing can still shoot flames n’ shit?” you question, flipping the blade upwards so you can stare at its edge.

“Maybe not _that_ particular feature, but yes. It can still do some special stuff.” He steps forward and presses the blade downward, away from your face, using his index finger. “Jade helped out with the physics of it, apparently.”

“Awesome. So. How do I activate it.” There’s not a visible button on it.

“That’s the cool part. The katana will activate itself, according to the situation and how dire it has become. It saves the user from fumbling with the button during the fight. Also, it won’t go off in the lab.”

This is some Grade-A level bullshit. How are you supposed to get this piece of junk to activate when you’re just slicing up some dummies in the gym? You raise an eyebrow at Abhay, which is all you need to do to communicate your issue.

He sighs. “If self-activation isn’t enough for you, you just need to twist the layers of grip on the handle. Different handle portions twisted together will activate different weapons or different combos of those weapons.”

“Sweet.” You start to fake-twist the handle, which gets you the desired effect: Rastogi starts spluttering and trying to smack the sword out of your hands. When you laugh and he realizes what’s going on, he stops and puts his hands on his hips.

“That is so dangerous and so totally illegal!” he scolds. “You shouldn’t even kid about that! I could have you banned from the lab just for this stunt!”

You’re not worried. He won’t do it.

You do a mock salute and saunter out the door in typical Strider fashion, leaving a fuming Abhay behind and some serious slice and dice bullshit ahead.

 

***

 

Only the central bulb is lit up in the gym. It’s basically a warehouse floor, with some black mats lining the center. You step over to the control panel to the right of the door and flick a few switches.

Difficulty, hard. Increase threats as fight progresses. You press the button for music as an afterthought. Dubstep should be good.

Gray humanoid silhouettes, slightly larger than your average man, slowly rise out of the ground, forming a circle. There are about eight of them. Each has a ring of circles sketched on them, starting in the middle of the ‘face’ and expanding outwards.

You walk to the center of the group. You take up battle stance, weight on your back foot and sword tip pointed slightly up. Okay.

Go.

You leap at the one directly in front of you. The blade slashes diagonally through the dummy’s head like butter, cleanly taking off the right side of its face. You take the blade’s momentum with a spin.

Flashstep to the left. Overhead swing. The sword lodges itself in the next figure’s forehead, getting down into torso territory. You yank on the handle to take it out.

Something whizzes past your ear, you look behind you. The target behind you has a ball machine attached. Tug. Your sword is out. You sprint over.

Another ball launches, nearly nailing you in the left arm. Motherfucker. You try to run lower to the ground, where the machine can’t aim. You thrust the blade straight into the dummy’s stomach. The green light on top of the ball machine starts flashing red.

An object slams into your spine, pushing you forward. You grapple onto the dummy you just disemboweled, then scramble behind it. You peek out from behind your shield. Figure with sand bag launcher. 11 o’ clock. You run your hand lightly over your back. You can’t fight if you threw your spine out. Okay. You’re fine. Move.

Duck left. Forward three strides. Hit the ground in a roll. Another sandbag flies over you. Push onto knees. Upwards stab, right in the crotch. Red light.

Ha.

It’s a bad idea, but you take a few moments to catch your breath. In, out. In, out. In, out. A bead of sweat rolls onto your glasses. You absentmindedly gaze at it while you breathe deeply. Once your lungs don’t suck so much, you wipe it off and--

You jump when the target you crotch-stabbed topples over with a loud bang.

God damn it that threw you off.

You’re still pissed. John is still a dick, Rose and Jade are still helping him, and Karkat is still loitering in your home and probably plotting to kill you all. All that, and the music is taunting you; the almost classical sounding shit in the background sounds a lot like the playing of a certain group of people you’re trying to forget right now. This training session is only helping your temper a little. Cutting dummies isn’t as much fun as cutting the real deal. Maybe these don’t look Alternian enough? Should you stick some spiky black hair on them? Fill them with fake blood? Think of insults that a fifth grader with a bad vocabulary would say? Maybe what you need are some nubby horns you could glue--

There’s a clicking.

Oh shit.

Battle stance.

When you asked for threats to increase, you weren't thinking sandbags. Those are new, and pretty dangerous. Seattle military doesn't fuck around, you guess.

And it’s only supposed to get worse.

You move only your eyes to survey the scene in front of you. Nothing’s there.

So where is that noise coming from?

The clicking is picking up speed.

It sounds almost like a machine gun.

Behind you.

You’re.

Fucked.

A jet stream of water slaps the back of your head, and you topple forward onto the ground with a grunt. You pad your face’s meet and greet with the ground using your hands.

Watch it. These are shades weren’t cheap, you know. Actually. You wouldn’t mind smashing them right now. It would serve that dick right.

The katana in your hands starts to rattle a bit. Huh. Oh, yeah. Fuck yes. Abhay wasn’t lying. The situation might not be deadly, but you sure as hell aren’t complaining about this malfunction.

There’s a whir of gears and a flat strip of metal pops out of the top of the handle. You watch as it unfolds into a large rectangle, about four by four feet. There’s now a crude shield attached to your katana. This’ll do.

You curl your legs underneath you so you’re in a crouch. You grip the handle and raise the shield up to block the stream. Looks like the water is coming out of Dummy #5. You’ve got your next target.

Running against the stream with a shield isn’t gonna get you anywhere, so you twist on the katana’s handle a bit. Spinning blade attachment, no. Taser-thing, not right now. _Hello, rocketlauncher_.

You extend your shield as far left as you can, then twist the red handle portion again. You hope that this is how you get it to fire. The stream stopping and the dummy in front of you bursting into flames says that your guess was right. Hallelujah.

There are only three dummies left. You should move while nothing’s being hurled at your face. You start sprinting to the left. So far, your path is clear. A left hand swing and the sixth target’s upper half is off.

As you run to the next dummy, you can’t help but think how easily you’re taking out targets. A wooden rod whips out from the base of one of the destroyed dummies, which you easily leap over.

You mean, this level is meant for two or three trainees, and you’re going through obstacles with no problem. You bounce the katana into your right hand and cut through the seventh dummy’s neck as you run past. Karkat wouldn’t last a second in a fight against you.

Something sprouts out of the middle of the gym floor. It looks like a wheel on its side. You realize that it’s starting to move, and in the opposite direction you’re running. Ugh. More things to jump over.

You hop over the metal spokes every three strides. You’re still about 10 feet away. This is taking too long. You’ve got to make the kill now before more stuff comes out. You move forward four more feet, then brace yourself to make the final jump.

You’re moving through the air, fast. You swing your sword overhead and brace for landing. And John said you can’t do anything. Your feet connect with the ground and you move your weight downward when--

Your feet are pushed out from underneath you and you land on your left asscheek. Ouch. You look like a total dumbass, sword still pointed upward at the dummy. God fucking damn it.

But to your delight, your katana shakes a bit more in your hands and grows about a half a foot longer, neatly punching a hole in the last target’s chest.

Works for you.

The music stops. The entire gym starts to power down around you. The wheel’s spokes retract into the base and the thing goes back under the floor.

Breathing hard, you go to check the stat screen. 3 minutes and 50 seconds. New course record. Sweet. You probably would’ve done it faster if you had done it with friends, though. Together, you’re unstoppable.

It doesn’t look like you’ll be working together for quite some time, though. Not while they keep that serial killer as a pet. You can see why they think he’s harmless; he’s always tripping over things, feigning headaches, playing pathetic.

In fact. It's not your friends that are messed up--they’ve been tricked. No. As always, the root of the problem lies in the shitbags you nicknamed trolls.

This is all Karkat's fault.

He turned your friends against you, wasted years of training, eradicated any grudge they held against his kind for murdering your families.

They may tolerate it. But you sure as hell won't.

You normally avoid direct conflict. But you’re going to make an exception, since your friends are a little brainwashed right now.

You’re dumping this katana with Abhay and then you’re heading straight home to fix this once and for all.

 

* * *

 

 

You’re stomping your way down the apartment when you see the street scum.

Stick-like pale guy, short. Leaning against the brick wall of an apartment complex. Holding something big.

You don’t see anything wrong, at first. Sure, it’s a little weird for someone to be casually chillin’ outside at 10 at night. But you’re out here too, so you’re not one to be talking. And who knows, maybe he just got off his shift at the underground strip club or something, who are you to judge.

But then you hear the hushed voices.

“You’re gonna go home and get the money. You’re going to bring it here. Or your family is going to die,” there’s a muted sob that’s abruptly cut off with a jerk of the man’s arm. “You got that?”

You come to a stop on the sidewalk.

A broken voice moans out, “Yes, okay, okay, I’ll get it.”

“Good,” the man squeaks out--looks like he hasn’t done this before. “Just remember, there are guys outside your apartment. If they see something weird and radio me, I’ll send them inside. So. Don’t try anything!”

He then shoves the thing in his arms--apparently, a person--into the middle of the street. They stumble a few steps, but after a glance over their shoulder at the mugger, they start quickly wobbling across the road.

You narrow your eyes behind your glasses and turn your head at this scumbag. Apparently the turd rooming in your apartment isn’t the only shitstain that needs to be scrubbed in the toilet you affectionately call “Seattle.”

It’s not Karkat, but your fist isn’t going to know the difference. Consider this a… practice run. Yeah, sounds about right.

Thuqqlyfe has noticed you; he straightens up and gives you a tight-lipped smile. His eyes are covered by his hood.

“Nice night, huh?” He raises his wrist up to check a rusty watch, then lowers it back to his side. “It’s getting late. Shouldn’t you be getting home?”

It’s not a suggestion. It’s a command.

Your lip curls.

“Listen up, cumslut,” you spit out as you march over to him. “I didn’t spend four years learning how to properly fight in order to NOT fight anyone.” The snarl that twists onto your face feels foreign.

You latch on to his shoulders. “Thanks for volunteering.”

The guy doesn’t weigh more than a bag of sticks--you’re barely winded when you throw him against the alley wall.

Yes. This feels good.

The mugger groans loudly in pain, trying to get up and spluttering out something that sounds vaguely like, “Stop.”

Note to self: gag Karkat. You don’t want anyone to hear him and try to stop you.

You slowly walk over to him, folding up your shades and sticking them in your back pocket.

You still have a few coherent thoughts. _What the fuck is wrong with me_ , is one gem that presents itself as you slam your heel into his ribs. You can feel bones crunching and instead of being grossed out like you should be, you just want to hear it again.

You know you’re fighting dirty, but this guy was living pretty dirty himself. Maybe your dirt cancels each others out or something? Either way, there’s not enough time to dump bleach down this idiot’s throat and clean him out. The ghost of your douche-Bro’s past will just have to settle for slowly shaking his head in shame.

The dipshit whines out a few more slurred noises that sound almost inhuman. It adds to the illusion. The hair you’re clenching your fingers into isn’t curly brown, it’s spiky and black. The nose that you’re slamming against the wall isn’t a sickly peach, it’s gray. Lucky for you, you don’t have to reimagine the color of his blood.

Your attacks aren’t even organized anymore. You’re just kicking him in the back and his jaw, stomping on his fingers.

You just want to make him hurt. _Someone_ hurt. Like what _he_ did to you.

You drive your foot into his stomach and he wheezes, curling up into a ball.

With each cough he hacks out, you can feel the anger shooting up to your brain. Blood splatters on your shoes. Everything looks red.

Time to finish this.

You grab a handful of the guy’s shirt and push him onto his back, so his bloodied face is exposed. You straighten up and then angle your foot back, ready to force it in his skull. You take a final look at the fucker.

He’s about your age, maybe even younger. His face still hasn’t lost its roundness--his swelling eyes, jaw, and nose aren’t helping slim it down, though. Rich red liquid spurts out of his nose in clumps and into his gaping mouth, which opens and closes uselessly like a drugged-out goldfish. He sluggishly rolls his head from side to side, like he’s trying to signal _no_.

You readjust your foot. You can’t back down now.

He’s scum. He was going to kill an innocent person.

_Hold up._

You shift your foot yet again. Hesitantly.

_Well._

As soon as you get some traction on this goddamn slippery floor, you’ll do it.

_Dude._

You swear to sweet Jesus almighty, you’re going to fucking do it.

_Aren’t you about to kill a guy, too?_

You kill things professionally. But there’s something different and impersonal about being behind the tip of a sword with the target trying to kill you back, rather than having a foot in their ribcage and their eyes rolled back into their head.

You can’t do this to some kid.

You’re not so sure if you could do this to Karkat.

From the few times you’ve lost control like this, you’ve learned something: once you take off the mask, it feels nearly impossible to put back on. You have to consciously tell yourself to relax your face muscles. Sag your shoulders. Reaffix your uninterested stare. And finally--the shades.

The mask complete, you hook your thumbs in your jean pockets and look down at your victim.

“He’s just as lost in this clusterfuck as I am, isn’t he.”

No response. Not that you were expecting one.

You step around him to the wall on the opposite side of the alley and brace your back against it. You slide down to the ground with a resounding thump.

All those years, you worried about what would happen if one of these monsters got its claws on you.

You weren’t expecting that _you_ would feel like a monster if the tables were flipped.

A faint pattering of rain plinks onto the ground, and you can’t help but think how fucking melodramatic this entire goddamn situation is. Your sob story of a life could be a plotline out of a fucking soap opera at this point.

Mutated, misunderstood kid protagonist is terrified of scary alien people, the antagonists. Protag makes friends off of said fear. Things get okay. Then, freaky alien antagonist makes its way into friend group and turns out to be a better person in general than protag. Turns out that the “scary alien” isn’t much more than a gray, sharper version of a human, and that protag was being a pissbaby the whole time. The protag’s solution: beat the shit out of someone in a dark alleyway to cut down the rage and plan to murder humanity’s last hope.

That’ll solve everything.

You gaze at the huddle in front of you. He still hasn’t moved. Oh shit, did you kill him? That may have been your intent a few minutes ago, but now you’re not so sure.

Would your life actually be easier if _he_ were dead, like he’s supposed to be?

Sure, you would still be out fighting on the field. Those Alternians aren’t going to kill themselves, y’know. The job of border patrol and internal city defense has been a constant since the city closed off all those years ago. You’ve known that would be your job since you chugged apple juice by the gallon and actually liked puppets.

But is that really what you want to do with your life? Go hunt down some dipshit aliens and knife them? Possibly get knifed yourself and become another statistic? You can just see the headline in the tiny side section of the paper dedicated to the dead: “Teenager in Land Troop Division Gets Ripped to Shreds by Alternian.” The subtitle would read, “People say he was pretty cool. Who fucking cares.”

No, you don’t want to be a soldier. At least, not for the rest of your life. Despite what the government may say, most of their troops-in-training haven’t fixated their entire lives on Alternians. Personally, you’d rather spend the rest of your life making music or taking pictures or bottling dead things or working a cash register or cleaning people’s shitters or ANYTHING besides running around in the city and playing xeno-pest control.

But that’s not an option for you. That’s never been an option for you, or any of your friends for that matter. From the moment Seattle sealed itself off and the first of the Strider family set foot into the enlistment center, you’ve been destined for this job. You never met the original Strider that got you stuck in this military mess, but you’re sure they were a douche.

Even if you _could_ do a job you wanted, it’s not like it would pay much. The only place here with real money is the base, and even they don’t pay a lot for going out and nearly getting killed every day. Apparently, you’re supposed to be willing to get paid almost nothing because you’re “defending humanity.” Tell that to the shitty apartment you can barely afford, even rooming with three other people. You still occasionally have to ask your siblings for money, who sometimes struggle to pay their own apartment bills--despite having some of the nicest jobs 19-year-olds can have. You’re in the nicer half of the city and you still question the safety of the drinking water, for fuck’s sake.

Artsy professions would land you in the bad half, and that place is something straight out of the diseased mind of Lovecraft. (Yes, you know who Lovecraft is. If you know Rose Lalonde, you know who Lovecraft is.)

So you’re screwed on all grounds. The only way to be un-screwed would be for the war to end, which feels more like something a person with a genie would wish for rather than a genuine thing that could happen in the near future.

And this is where Karkat becomes useful. Ugh.

You’re feeling a lot like Abhay usually does: you want the war to end so everyone can get on with their lives and do stuff that doesn’t involve guns and punching bulletholes in aliens with said guns. And you don’t like this feeling one bit.

The water on the ground is soaking into your pants and you don’t fucking care because basically everything you’ve believed up to this point is false and you’re having an existential crisis and having wet underwear is currently at the bottom of your list of problems, right between whether wearing a onesie can be passed as ironic and why Tarzan didn’t have a beard.

It’s also kind of a let down to see that underneath all that armor, the thing you’ve been training to combat for your entire life is _this_. Either you got taller or the Alternians got shorter. They were so much freakier when you were 11. Maybe seeing and shooting them nigh daily has desensitized you to their beauteous faces, but their claws are about as scary to you as a butter knives.

It’s like those horror stories Dirk used to read to you when you were five. Little Bobby finds a big toe in the garden and eats it, then some corpse gremlin jumps down his chimney and murders him or something similarly stupid. You used to pee your tighty whities over that shit. You didn’t have a chimney, but you made Dirk build a smuppet wall in front of the space radiator because that was your apartment’s equivalent to Mr.Gremlin’s entry-zone.

Now you just feel kind of wimpy for ever finding that stuff scary. Not to mention that the story was a bit dubious. (He finds a toe and his first reaction is to _eat it? What?_ ) You’d be pretty pissed off too if some little shit stole part of your foot. And maybe the gremlin was trying to look the best he could and the narrator was just being a dick to him with that grotesque description.

Hella metaphor aside, you’re just now realizing that there’s way more to the story of the war than _they shoot us, we shoot back_. Both sides are getting hurt. Both sides are way in over their heads.

The difference between your side and theirs is that while you just want the fighting to stop, they want total annihilation. You don’t know why--humans could make pretty great slaves for their palaces or something. But the fact that the Alternians haven’t taken any war prisoners kinda shows that they don’t give a shit about enslaving you guys. They already have other races to do their dirty work, ie the douchetastic Noir.

But now you have the advantage. You’ve got one amnesic teenage Shouty McNubs on Earth--which (you hate to admit) is better than zip. He may be as annoying as Nic Cage’s face, but he’s the only thing that can stop Seattle from destroying itself in this fight. If you can find out what the situation is like on Alternia, you can figure out how to stop this mess.

That’s how John, Rose, and Jade saw him from the beginning. Now you feel like a dunderfuck extraordinaire for thinking that they were replacing you with him. It’s a feeling comparable to stealing half of someone’s burrito and then finding out the hard way that they put six cups of chili peppers on it--shitty and full of regret. John isn’t only your friend because you were both scared of Alternians. Maybe it was originally that way, but you’ve both grown up. You don’t want to throw away years of inside jokes and bro-bonding just because John got over his fear quicker than you did.

And when it comes down to it, Karkat is really just what you are: a kid. He’s not scary. It’s also not his fault that the grownups on his planet went berserk and decided to shoot shit up on your planet. It would be nice if he knew WHY the adults on his planet are berserk, though.

Now, you’re not saying you’re gonna be nice to Karkat. Unlike the war, his douchery is something that’s in his own control. Your friends let him get away with too much sass. But you ARE going to work with him. You can’t just ignore his presence any longer. You especially can’t plan his murder anymore like a goddamn psychopath.

Maybe you should look at that old dusty Alternian dictionary you got in class a few years ago. After you apologize to your friends, that is. Even you aren’t stupid enough to think you can get away with saying shit like that without an apology.

Thuqqlyfe is still passed out cold. Damn, the kid can sleep. You’ve still got to do something about the person he was muggin’. You’ll wait for them to show back up and tell them to take the back streets home, then you’ll deal with this punk’s posse.

The victim, another short white kid, shows up about a minute later. You’re glad it’s dark, because if the kid could see all the blood on your clothes you’d be one phone call away from the police station. You explain to the poor guy your plan, to which he eagerly agrees. You can faintly hear him shouting thanks to you as he sprints away.

You give him a two minute head start, then start patting down the unconscious mugger. He said he had a walkie-talkie, where is--oh, here. You yank the radio off of his belt loop and hold down the button on the side. “Howdy, homeboys,” you lilt, letting your accent out a little more than usual. “I just beat the shit out of your compadre-in-crime. Now get the FUCK away from that apartment and use your GPS to get the FUCK over here before your pal bleeds to death on the pavement.”

Some chick starts shouting at you over the line, but you quickly turn the knob to a silent station. You then backboard the walkie-talkie onto the brick wall and into the dumpster. 2 points to Team Douche.

You hesitate in calling the police. The kid learned his lesson, and you learned yours. Instead, you text the cops to watch out for gang activity in the general area. It’s kind of pointless, since the police does jackshit, but you feel better for it. Maybe you should keep an eye around here yourself.

You prop the kid up against the brick wall of the alley, then scramble back towards your apartment.

The living room is dark when you quietly open the door. Damn, how late is it? You felt like you were only out for like two hours, but it must have been more. Whatever, you guess. You’re home now, and you just want to get some shuteye.

You aren’t ready to sleep in the guys’ room with John and Karkat yet. Something about planning Karkat’s murder and then nonchalantly waltzing in to get some z’s sits with you about as well as Lil Cal’s dead eyes.

The couch it is.

You strip down to your boxers and throw your clothes in the corner. You flop onto your bed for the night.

Your head hits the couch pillow and it’s off to Snoozeville for you.

 

***

 

Moments later, someone’s shaking your shoulder like an antique Shake Weight.

You mumble a “no” and try to flip on your side when a hand lightly slaps your cheek. When you wrap your blanket more firmly around yourself, you’re hit again with a little more force.

“Harley, let a guy sleep,” you complain. “Shockingly, not all of us want to wake up at 5 in the goddamn morning. An even smaller percentage of us are as freakishly energetic as you at 5 in the goddamn morning.”

There’s a high-pitched huff, and then your cheeks are being full on assaulted like a game of slapjack.

“It’s 7, and while you may not want to be awake, the base sure does!”

You finally crack your eyes open to look at Jade.

“They called a mandatory military personnel meeting! We’ve gotta go, we’re already going to be late!”

“Wait, like, the whole base?” You shove back your blanket and reach for your shades as Jade hops off your makeshift bed and heads for the bathroom door. “Everyone has to go?”

“Yep! Looks like we’re going to have to leave Karkat here alone, huh? I’ll ask John whether or not we’re going to tie him up, though I don’t think Karkat running away is going to be an issue.”

You’re not worried about Karkat right now. You’re worried about the fact that the entire base has to attend this meeting. That hasn’t happened since the base took over the city government--aka the dinosaur era.

Something big is going down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did you think that the fedora freaks stopped being a thing even though humanity is almost pushed to extinction? i wish so but no
> 
> and one of the exiles was introduced this chapter! try and figure out who it is (it shouldn't be that hard).
> 
> i am sincerely sorry over how long this chapter took. it's the usual stuff that kept me from getting around to it, but luckily: a) swimming is about to end and b) my online class is almost over so i'll have more writing time. 
> 
> i think from this point on, i'm going to be writing longer chapters and taking 3 to 4 weeks to update. i feel like the shorter chapters i've written are lower quality and less plot-advancing than the past two long ones i've posted. i may just feel that way because my writing has improved a bit since the first few chapters, but i'm going with it. 
> 
> the usual: my tumblr is wizord-of-oz.tumblr.com  
> my sister/proofreader/illustrator is harehollows.tumblr.com  
> i track the tag "spacemanstuck" on tumblr
> 
> thank you for reading, commenting, giving kudos, and subscribing!
> 
> EDIT: art. look at this asshole looking serene while covered in a shit ton of blood.
> 
> EDIT X2: i probably should have made this note a bit ago, but school and swimming have both started up again. i'm swamped with schoolwork already so my writing time for spaceman has reached a standstill. i've decided to give up the (not very believable) ruse of having chapter deadlines--it stressed me out, it caused poor quality writing, and it made writing for this fic no longer enjoyable. i have a lot of ideas for this story, but it's hard to get them into words when i'm forcing myself to put down words just to get it done. with that said, updates will be pretty spaced out. this story isn't even halfway done yet, and i find it's more plot-advancing to have long chapters (even if it takes way longer). i'm sorry for the inconvenience, but i hope you'll continue to read this when it DOES update! thanks!
> 
> WELCOME BACK: i've noticed an influx of people visiting this fic and i'm guessing it has something to do with the fact i can't update the friggin art without pressing the theoretical red button that alerts you kind patient souls that i have finally stepped up my game and have ceased to be a procrastinator-extraordinaire. i'm here to tell you that the button has lied to you and will continue to do so for a bit: a) yes, a new chapter is in the works. b) no, it will not be any time within the next two weeks (12-9 to 12-23). i've started dusting the metaphorical cobwebs off of chapter 9's rough draft (damn, these dust bunnies look more like dust elephants), but that's the farthest i've gotten. winter break will mean more writing time, so i guess the new chapter is coming sooner rather than later. + if you flip through some of the older chapters you'll notice some of the old pretty/bloody pics have been replaced with NEWER pretty/bloody pics--that's harehollows. check her out. ok. that's really it. thank you for checking in, if you have, and sorry for the (multiple) false alarms. this will probably set one off too (god damn it)


	9. GET SCHOOLFED IN GAMEGRUBBING.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WELCOME BACK. 
> 
> (AGAIN.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the events of this chapter run parallel to the events of chapter 8 (aka when dave was being an angsty lil shit)

======> **GET SCHOOLFED IN GAMEGRUBBING.**

 

To quote a true wise troll-- “ _Now, this is a story all about how/ My life got flipped-turned upside down…_ ”

The story is that you’ve strategically placed yourself upside-down on the couch, because you are the only idiot in existence that somehow performs better in video games when your ass replaces your head’s designated spot on the couch and vice versa. 

You two have a routine. Whenever your friend acquires a new game grub (half of which are ancient codes his matesprit found in ancient ruins, which he reprograms), he sends you a message on Trollian, you insult each other for a bit, internally scold yourselves for hate-flirting, apologize to each other, and then he asks you to come play the game as a form of apology and repentance. Yep, just guys being dudes.

This game happens to be particularly pan-numbing. You watch as your avatar, blue-blooded Threshecutioner Jalvia, scales a communal hive dwelling using his sickles and then leaps to the roof of the neighboring building. Maybe you’ll consider jumping off one and ending Jalvia’s boring-ass virtual life.

As he crosses his fourth rooftop, a streak of metal emerges from the bottom of the screen and lodges itself in your player’s left glute. The metallic dots attached to specific points on your real-life spinal column and your temples--the latest in sadistic Alternian video gaming--ensures that you feel a muted stabbing sensation in the area. It’s not a HORRIBLE sensation, but it sure isn’t a comradic butt-grope in the park either. You make a noise of protest and mash buttons until the Threshecutioner is ready for battle, wounded asscheek and all. 

From the left, a blaze of purple light informs you that His Douchiness, the Telekinereaper, has arrived.

It’s a short fight--Jalvia is hoisted into the air by his ankles and slammed into the concrete a few times, pulverizing his skull. Sensors wrapped around your horns mimic the oh-so-pleasant sensation.

Ultimately, Jalvia has his spinal column severed when a well-aimed streak of psionics folds him cleanly in half, head against the back of his heels. You cringe a bit at the twin jab you receive on your back, but it wasn’t anything you weren’t expecting. You cannot hope to beat your friend in a game grub. He is simply the best there is.

You upright yourself and slump against the arm of the sofa as the sensors shut down. The K.O. sequence starts soon after; the Telekinereaper stalks over to his kill and proceeds to rip out the fragments of his opponent’s spinal column, then using them as knives in order to... well, the usual over-the-top victory bullshit. Your eyes start to glaze over as the onscreen carnage picks up. Yawn.

“It’th kind of trippy to think that we’ll be learning how to do all thith thit ourthelves pretty thoon, huh.”

He keeps his eyes glued to the screen, even when you turn to look at him. He doesn’t say anything for a bit, so you go back to watching the screen, too. You honestly don’t know how to respond.

Alternian military recruitment will most definitely NOT end well for you, for obvious reasons. Not that your friend knows that.

You layer on a nonchalant voice to hide your uncertainty. “I mean, well, yeah. You know what they say: ‘when the Imperial Drone comes knocking, you better have your shit packed for boot camp.’” You don’t elaborate.

He must notice that you’re being quieter than usual, because now HE turns to face you. You don’t return the favor.

“KK, let’th fathe the factth. We leave in a quarter-thweep to an intenthive military boot camp, where we’ll get thwole ath fuck and probably loothe motht of our pan thellth. Then we’re thipped off to war, where we may or may not get obliterated, who fucking knowth. Tho for onthe, let’th have a pump bithcuit to pump bithcuit, okay?”

You sigh--fine, but if he even ATTEMPTS the vaguest semblance of a gentle shoosh or pap, you will empty the contents of your digestive sac on him and flee into the night, both middle fingers pointed skyward. Your moirallegiance interests lie elsewhere.

“What job are you going to train for? You alwayth theemed to be really into the Threshecutionerth.”

He’s got you there. Olive-blooded Troll Will Smith and his verbal flaying of his fellow blue-blood threshecutioners was basically your childhood and life inspiration. Finally, someone with the shame globes to shove the highblood elitism up their pursed assholes and give the lowbloods a fighting chance at military glory. Maybe that could even extend to mutants.

But then you grew a pan. The hemospectrum is way too tight for underdog stories like your noble Thresh Prince; hence, the olive threshecutioner’s story would have to remain fiction at best. Anyways, the hemospectrum gives some structure to the chaos of the garbage world you call home. Everyone has a place, and yours is in the sewers. Scratch that--not even in the sewers. Not anywhere on this planet.

You WOULD say fuck Troll Will Smith for giving you false hope of a prosperous future for you in service of Her Imperious Condescension, but you can’t stay mad because c’mon, _it’s Troll Will Smith_.

“Haha, or maybe you’re too much of a weenie to actually get in.”

You can feel the blood rushing to your face in your anger, which you try to cover up by “sleepily” rubbing your eyes with the oversized sleeves of your sweater. Nice save, nookwhiff, now you have to _respond_.

“Yeah, I probably will try to join up with them," you muse. "I’d rather let the idiotic shitrags with no sense of self-preservation take the lowblood position of ‘target practice for the opponent’ any day.”

You try your best to sound casual, but feel like you’re failing miserably. “Also, those are the only outfits in the whole damn military that don’t make me want to off myself with the fucking standard uniform ascot that every other miserable regiment will have to wear. I will gladly take poofy asshole pants that let my bulge breathe over the glittery spandex bullshit the HIC decks everyone out in.”

“Heh," your pal weakly laughs. "Well, thinth I’ll be theeing quite a bit of the Condethe, I’ll motht likely be the glitterietht athhole of them all.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence as you recall your friend’s almost guaranteed military position--a helmsman. As a psiionic, your pal is going to be forced into what was voted to be the most soul-sucking position in the Alternian legion. While spacecraft tech has improved exponentially since the days of the HIC’s personal Helmsman’s employment, and helmsmen no longer have to physically attach their entire bodies to ships, the mental strain of steering a massive ship usually results in serious brain trauma following service. Which doesn’t bode well for the troll unless they recover within a sweep.

The best case scenario for your friend would be enlistment as a telekinereaper, but that role is usually reserved for weaker psionics and telekinetic trolls. And your friend would not be considered “weak” by a long shot.

The silence is severed with a harsh laugh. You whip your head to look at your friend in shock, watch him keel over and grip his stomach he’s laughing so hard. As the laughs taper off into hysteric giggles, you wonder if he’s gone crazy. 

“It doethn’t even matter! Who even careth about all thith job bee-eth!” He heaves one final chuckle.

He takes off his glasses to wipe a tear from his right eye, then proceeds to carelessly toss them over his shoulder into the mass of computer tech. He smirks.  

“We’re all dead, regardleth.”

The temperature of the room goes from cozy warm to Satan’s winter vacation home. You swear your bulge is going to freeze off--it’s inching closer and closer to attaining popsicle status every millisecond.

The warm yellow glow emanating from all the monitors go blue. You turn to your friend for an explanation, and are more than a little creeped out to find him staring at you with a cartoonish glare glued on his face.

“And it’s your fault.”

He rises from his seat with a curved spine and a menacing gleam in his eyes. His fingers elongate before your gander bulbs into long, spindly murder weapons. You’re left to crabwalk as far back on the couch as you can--not very fucking far.

“What’s my fault? What the actual fuck are you spewing word garbage over?”

“We’re all going to die and it’s going to be your fault.” On the last word his voice drops at least four octaves and bounces around the room, finally coming to rest in the pit of your digestive sac. However, you think it’s scarier that his lisp has magically disappeared.

“Who? Who’s dying here, stop being a fucking riddle wrapped in an enigma.”

He speaks in a two-part disharmony, with a jumping high voice and an unquavering low one. “All of us.”

Ten pairs of glowing white eyes pop onto the blue monitors, blinking on and off. It wouldn’t bother you so much if there weren’t distant screams to accompany them.

Your breath starts catching in your throat and _god damn it_ there is simply not enough air in this room, could someone please open a window and let in a breeze and please push Mr. Electric Boogaloo out of it while they’re at it?

“Alternia will fall, and your friends will die. And you will be to blame.”

You yell at him to stay back--you try to call him by name, and you’re surprised to find that you do in fact say a name. You utter the syllables, but the sound comes out like television static and the letters making up that damned six-letter name pixelate in your own thought waves.

You KNOW you got his name right, you’re positive you just called him him by his fucking name. But you can’t remember what you just said for the life of you.

You try again. “------!” You succeed in saying it again, but all you get are static sounds and more pixels.

Everything is television static. Your thoughts, your voice, the room around you, even your friend himself. His form flickers in little pinpricks of color and jumps, warping around his glowing red and blue eyes.

Your chest starts to ache just from watching, but then aching turns to stabbing, and _wow this is not a welcome change in pain level please refrain from internally bruising your ribs  @your moronic pump biscuit_.

The floor scorches underneath him as he prowls closer; he looks less like a troll and more like a mass of electricity. The heat emanating off of him is unbearable--you lift your hand to shield your face and watch in horror as the gray skin melts off your fingers and reveals the bright red muscle underneath.

Instinct breaks through your thought jumble. _Hide your blood_. You tuck your raw fingers into the folds of your sweater and look back up. He’s solidifying again, but the heat is still roasting. Your face feels like it’s dripping.

There’s a dropping sensation, like your digestive sac just decided to alley-oop the fuck out of your chagrin tunnel. The cushions below you part and--as your friend watches with a smirk--you plummet into a deep, dark abyss. 

You don’t feel yourself land, but you DO feel an abundance of pointy edges suddenly poking at your face and chest.

You scramble into a safer position, ruining your pile as you pull your knees into your chest.

You wonder if there’s a human equivalent of sopor slime, because DAMN do you need it.

The curtains are drawn over the window on the wall across from you, but your nocturnal eyes take only a second or two to adjust. All is still in the room. No computers and no electric monsters.

As your pulse finally slows, you clench your eyes in frustration. If these kids won’t kill you, sleep deprivation probably will. Among the spectrum of things you can’t remember is the last time you slept solidly for more than three hours. You’re uncomfortably comfortable with waking up with clammy skin and sweat stains.

This nightmare was an upgrade in intensity from the usual delve into your subconsciousness. Most of what you’ve seen before have been fragments--echoing voices, dripping blood, your inevitable death, yadda yadda yadda. You’ve died so many in your dreams that you’ll probably face your real death with a nonchalant shrug, maybe an offhand “oh no.” You’ve become an expert on recognizing when you’re dreaming; you can immediately identify dream logic for the total batshit it is.

What made this particular dream so horrific is that you _couldn’t_ tell you were asleep. Dream logic didn’t play into it until the end. It felt less like the standard collage of broken facts and more like a... story? A memory?

There’s also the matter of your nightmare buddy. That’s the most in-depth recollection you’ve had so far of anyone you knew prior to… whatever. You got THIS close to finding out his name. And the memory wasn’t a life-or-death situation or a save-the-world moment. It was just you guys hanging out, being normal.

Your chest aches. You find yourself missing friends that you can’t even remember.

A breathy sigh floats over from the left side of the room--John. While it would be hilarious to wake him up at fuck knows what godforsaken hour, you think you’ll let him rest. Dave gave him a rough day, the abominable prick.

You tiptoe to the other side of Dave’s empty elevated sponge plateau (a bed, Jade calls it; but you’re not prone to using pompous highblood vernacular like a certain teal harpy you vaguely recall) and plant your ass on it so you’re facing John.

He looks different when he sleeps. Maybe it’s because he isn’t giving himself a wedgie over schedules, slapping himself over food, or gluing his mouth shut over secrets. But for some reason, his face looks less punchable like this.

He also looks more vulnerable. Standing upright, it’s pretty hard to miss that he’s built as fuck and will take you out quicker than Trolls Jules and Vincent from Troll Pulp Fiction. You’ve got to watch yourself around him--he’s a friendly little shit, but you know that everyone has limits. You’re glad you haven’t overstepped his yet. But passed out and cocooned in blankets like some pupated Mother Grub-to-be, he looks puny.

A weight settles in the pit of your gut as you realize that the thought of killing him in his sleep has yet to cross your thinkpan. Not even a wishful musing.

You squeeze your eyes shut--think murder, think murder, think murder.

The image of this boy with a hole stabbed through his stomach has no appeal.

The thought of his face, red and asphyxiated by your hand, gives you no excitement.

The idea of him lying in a pool of his own blood with a slit throat is almost enough to make you nauseous.

Face it.  

You simply have no desire to kill John.

…

You don’t even want to see him dead.

At the realization, you have to look down at your knees. What kind of a pisspoor troll are you? You have been beaten, taken prisoner, and forced to cooperate with these ALIENS, and yet here you are with not even a heart palpitation at the idea of revenge?

Even if you hadn’t suffered personal grievances, it’s the troll lifestyle to destroy and conquer. Fuck, you killed hundreds of your own species in the brooding caverns just to get out of there. Why is this any different? In fact, you have MORE incentive to kill John here and now than you did then--you have something to live for now: your friends and the glory of your species’ empire.

And as much as you like to think of John as such, he’s not an idiot.

 _He knows_ you aren’t going to do anything, even with the opportunity right at your fingertips every night, that _bastard_.

Your pump biscuit gives a louder thump than usual and you’re not sure what’s making it do that but you push it down and will it to never rear its unwelcome head again, so help you God.

The way he’s _twisting_ his way into depths of your thinkpan and his _blind trust_ that you will leave him unscathed and the way _you’re going along with it_ is fucking with literally everything and anything your memory has told you about the way an Alternian should live and behave. And you hate it/love it/just want things to go back to the goddamn forgotten status quo.

Apparently, the amount of fucked-up you are extends even past your blood color.

You’re whipped back to attention when John starts mumbling something; you’re about to execute a backwards somersault over Dave’s elevated sponge plateau and back into your hidey hole--somehow you don’t think John would appreciate you watching him while he sleeps--when you realize he’s just turning over and cocooning himself even more in his sheets.

You fight the urge not to laugh out loud at yourself--you ridiculous nincomshit, there’s no way in hell that was ever going to work. You imagine what John would say if he found your halfway-executed somersault, splayed out over Dave’s sleeping quarters. He would laugh and laugh (which would be fine), and you’d cuss him out in phrases he’d only half-understand (which would be fine), and he’d call in the rest of the gang and they’d all join in on the “laugh at Karkat” session (which would be fine).

You rise from your watching place and creep back towards your pile. Only when you settle back in do you realize you have a slight smile fixed to your face.

For first time--and hopefully the last--you leave it be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise bitch--bet you thought you'd seen the last of me. 
> 
> but anyways: happy almost 1 year anniversary since the last fic update. you might be asking: what happened? junior year kicked my ass basically.
> 
> well your reward for waiting was the first semblance of shippiness this fic has seen. pick a god and pray i didn't fuck it up
> 
> the usual: my tumblr is wizord-of-oz.tumblr.com  
> my sister/proofreader/illustrator is harehollows.tumblr.com  
> i track the tag "spacemanstuck" on tumblr
> 
> my sister intends to update the art from earlier chapters, mainly because she's grown to hate her old style with a burning passion
> 
> thank you for reading, commenting, giving kudos, and subscribing! chapter 10 is already in the works...noice
> 
> EDIT: sorry, dropped in to update some of the art! i've got to be honest.... the likelihood of me actually finishing this fic is slim. with homestuck now being over, my interest in it has waned a bit and i'm finding it harder and harder to do these characters justice. 
> 
> who knows, maybe i'll decide to finish this out sometime in the future. if i don't, maybe i'll post what the planned ending was. but i'm sorry to say that new content isn't coming any time soon....


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